


Nakhash

by linnythings



Series: Nakhash [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Actual Overweight Characters, Antisemitism, BAMF Neville, Cancer, Chessmaster Ron, Gen, Hauntings, Hebrew Magic, Judaism, Linguistically Brilliant Harry, Magic in Medicine, Morally Confused Malfoy, Multicultural Magic, Old Magic, Original Character Death(s), Pureblood Bigotry, Social Justice Hermione, Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, The Snakes - Freeform, The Spice Girls?, There'll be an AU chapter at one point but just one I promise, World Exploration
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-04-11 03:11:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4418873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linnythings/pseuds/linnythings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of oneshots meant as a companion piece to 'The Rebel Snakes'. An exploration of the science, culture and religion of the magical world, told through the story of the fat, smug, hotheaded, morally passionate Slytherin and practitioner of Hebraic magic, David Gold, throughout his time at Hogwarts, the formation of the Snakes, the heyday of Dumbledore's Army and the aftermath of the War.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Seder

**Author's Note:**

> Gold once told Harry he'd fit in at a Gold Shabbat. He wasn't wrong. In their sixth year, Harry spends Passover with the Gold family, drinks a bit too much, and learns many things. If you're bothered by the idea of tinkering with the Jewish faith to adapt it to a magical universe, maybe give this one a miss.

Dumbledore was all too happy to let them leave the grounds for a night. He spoke highly of Gold's family, and had nothing but praise for Harry's appetite for languages. He didn't seem to like Gold much, but that was beside the point.

Gold didn't like brooms even a tiny bit ("Gravity and I are not close friends. I'd go so far as to say we're not currently on speakers."), so once they were outside the gates, they apparated to a wealthy-looking suburb of London. Gold told Harry to unlock the wards, to practice his Hebrew.

" _Dalet bakah._ "

The door swung open.

"Is that them?"

"That's - he never did! Harry _Potter_!"

A man appeared at the door. He was only a few years past Hogwarts age, handsome and quite tall, with a tidy beard. He wrapped Gold in a bear hug. It was only when Harry noticed his eyes - dark and observant, just like Gold's - that he realized that he was looking at his older brother. Apart from the eyes, they looked nothing alike. As soon as he'd finished forcing Gold into the hug (Gold looked at least as annoyed as he was pleased to see his brother), the boy turned around and yelled up the stairs.

"David's here! With Potter!"

Shouts resounded back through the house. It was a warm and friendly chaos. A moment later, another boy came barrelling down the stairs, cleanshaven and a little younger than the first but just as handsome. "Duddeleh!"

"Call me that again and I will hex you into the next dimension," answered Gold, allowing himself to be bear-hugged again. "Potter, this is Avriel, and the one with the idiotic beard is Samson. Where's Ben?"

"Right here. C'mere, David." This one was obviously the eldest. He waited his turn to hug Gold to within an inch of his life, while the younger ones introduced themselves to Harry. They were all, as far as he could tell, more or less interchangeable - energetic, friendly, delighted to meet him and as different from their youngest brother as it seemed possible to be. Ben took Harry's coat. Avriel ("Call me Avi!") brought him a small circle of cloth and a glass of wine.

"Sorry... what do I do with this?"

"It's a kippah, you put it on your head," said Avi, who was wearing one of his own. Then he swooped in to pin one on Gold, who was still being manhandled by his eldest brother.

Gold tried to swat his hand away, and failed. "Don't - touch - my hair!"

"Don't be afraid to ask questions, Harry. Do you mind if I call you Harry?" Samson was too eager to wait for a response. "The whole purpose of the Seder is to educate. It's a teaching ritual. The more questions you ask, the better it is."

Harry relaxed. This was not what he'd imagined when Gold told him his family were secretive with their magic. He tried the wine, which was a bit cloyingly sweet at first, but soon its warmth seemed to make up for it. Gold stared. "You're a Goy and you're willingly drinking Manischewitz?" he asked, with an incredulous laugh. "You, Potter, are going to have a very good night."

"Boys, don't get the guests drunk _yet._ "

Gold's mother was a willowy, handsome woman of perhaps fifty, chestnut-haired, wearing bright emerald robes and golden earrings in the shape of small leaves. She descended on David, kissing his forehead and hugging him as forcefully as any of her sons.

"Mu- _uum_ ," Gold objected. Harry, who didn't think he'd ever understand being embarrassed by your parents, tried to smile politely despite the faint urge to box Gold's ears and tell him to appreciate what he had.

"Sorry, just-" She was brushing tears out of her eyes. Harry knew he didn't have much frame of reference, but that seemed extreme.

Then Gold's mother turned to him. " _Baruch haba_ , dear - welcome. Call me Rifke." Her English was strongly accented.

Harry straightened, mindful of what he'd been practicing. " _Toda rabah. Ma shlomex?_ "

She beamed at him. She struck him as more reserved than Molly Weasley, less fiery, but her smile had some of the same warmth. " _Tov, toda_. Your Hebrew is beautiful. Well, Harry, I hope the boys told you about asking questions, but maybe you won't need to?"

Harry had one major question, but he held his tongue.

Gold's father, Avrum, a very tall, bearded, kind-faced man, arrived with only minutes in hand before sundown, carrying bags of wine and food that the three elder boys rushed to help him deal with. David tried, but as soon as he got up, his father stopped him in his tracks and hugged him with as much emotion as his mother had. Gold looked like he was getting annoyed with the attention.

Harry's enjoyment of the bad wine dulled momentarily. David Gold, nastier and sharper-tongued and far, far homelier than any of his brothers, was clearly so much the favourite son that having him home made his parents cry. Suddenly David reminded him of Dudley all over again.

* * *

 

But by the time the meal got started, Harry had mostly forgotten about the strange inequality. It was at least as much a ceremony as a meal. Each place had a bowl of vegetables and a bowl of what looked like water, and there was another plate in the center with everything from an orange to a bone to an egg on it, but nobody touched any of them. Instead he was handed a bound bundle of pages, which was called a Haggadah. Flipping through it, found that every word of the evening had been laid out in Hebrew, Yiddish and English inside, along with textual explanations and illustrations. A bottle of the bad wine was passed around, and each person filled the glass of the person beside them. It felt like boozy primary school.

Avrum said a blessing in Hebrew. Harry had thought just to sip his, but Gold shook his head at him. "More, Potter - most of the glass."

"That's a rule?"

"Mandatory drinking. Welcome to Judaism. When I start telling you about blessing charms in Hebrew there'll be a _lot_ of wine involved."

Harry drank a larger gulp. It made him feel bolder. "You're the first religious wizards I've ever met. Most of them sort of... just don't talk about it."

"No, English wizards don't, do they?" Rifke shook her head, tutting. "Easiest way to deal with something is to shove it under the rug, or so they'd have you believe. So much is wrong that never gets talked about."

"It's not like that's just the Gentiles," said Gold, rolling his eyes.

"But the conflict between magic and faith is a Christian thing," Rifke continued. "We don't worry about it. There's barely a statute of secrecy in Israel."

Harry thought about it. The Dursleys, although privately without much faith to speak of (after all, it took imagination), were nominally C of E. Dudley had been baptized. Harry hadn't. "The church never trusted magic, did it? Witch-burnings and so on..."

"I reckon Christians feel threatened. Who needs faith when you have spells? The whole Christ story loses its _oomph_ , neyn?" David grinned his smug grin. "Unsurprisingly that isn't an issue for us. Early Christians gave us both a hard time - Jews and wizards, that is - so the synthesis was inevitable, really. Those great long wizard beards, those come from the rabbinical tradition - stop preening, Samson, that abomination on your face does not constitute a beard - and Hebraic magic is half prayer even now."

"I've noticed," said Harry. The word 'Adonai' popped up often enough that Harry had looked it up. The more complex spoken incantations all seemed to be imploring God for their power. There was a notion that speaking the word 'Yahweh' would rob a Hebraic wizard of his power. Gold assured him it was just superstition, but Harry didn't feel like chancing it. "Is that why all the candles?" he asked, thinking of the flames they had lit in the room of requirement to strengthen the power of their wards.

"I like this one," said Avrum, nodding. "Can we keep him, Rifke?"

Harry smiled. It would have been a lot nicer than going home to the Dursleys. Gold annoyed him sometimes, but he was still preferable to the real Dudley any day. "So - what about the Hanukkah story? The, ah, the oil-"

"The Maccabees? Eight days of light?"

"Yeah - that's not all that miraculous with magic either, is it? You could just use O _leum Facio_. Or, well, I guess it would be _Shemen Asah_."

"His Hebrew's better than mine," Ben joked.

"I'll tell you a secret, Potter." Gold leaned in. " _Nobody gives a shit about Hanukkah_."

* * *

 

There was a lot of rich, strongly flavoured food, in different, specific courses that came one after another after another, and even more drinking. The courses were separated by a lot of chatter, and prayers from the Haggadah, which everyone took turns reading, even Harry. Some of them made the candles in the room flicker, dimming and brightening with certain words. Some of them summoned illusory pictures in smoke, telling the stories of the text. Some of them were songs.

"Ma _nishtana ha lyla ha zeh mikkol hallaylot? Why is this night different from all other nights?_ ..."

It was a song from the point of view of a young child, and Gold sang it because he was the youngest. He had a very good voice, rough and strangely sad. By that point Harry had drunk a great deal of the bad wine. In the candlelit warmth he felt lulled and happy and strangely entranced. The rest of the family were looking at Gold again, and Harry saw tears glittering in their eyes again. Was it their inexplicable adoration of their youngest, or just the power of the moment? Harry wasn't sure. He could easily have believed the song itself was a spell. The night certainly felt... different. In Harry's eyes David Gold had always been ugly, but the candlelight and the song seemed to transform him. Just for a moment. Unless it was Harry that had been transformed.

The Haggadot had, he learned, as the evening went on, been cobbled together by generations of Golds. There were segments from non-magic Seders and segments that addressed magic directly, calling it a gift given to the Chosen People. One of them very strongly implied it had first been given to Moses as he faced the Pharaoh's so-called 'magicians', enabling him to transfigure his staff into a snake - a real magical answer to their sleight of hand. Harry asked if there was a spell, and one of the brothers demonstrated by turning a candlestick holder into a small silver snake with the words _Nakhash haphak_.

The snake Malfoy had summoned with _Serpensortia_ in their second year had been aggressive and ready to attack. This snake looked peaceable. The star of David pattern of the candlestick holder was printed on its back. It turned its head to regard Harry through slitted eyes.

" _Hello_ ," said Harry, without thinking what he was doing.

" _Hello, snake-talker human. You seem content. Are you content?_ "

" _I suppose._ "

" _Feed me a little of that meat and I shall be content too._ "

Harry offered it a fragment of the brisket. It swallowed it whole, curled up and went to sleep, transforming back into a silver carved candlestick.

The Golds were staring at him, not with horror, but with interest. "You're a Parseltongue, Harry?" asked Ben.

"Er. Yeah, I am," said Harry uneasily.

"Well, no wonder you're so quick at picking up languages. You've got one built into your brain."

Harry had never thought of it like that. "It puts people off sometimes. Sorry."

"Why?"

"They sort of associate it with Voldemort."

"Oh, yes, because everything associated with an entire sub-order of animals is automatically You-Know-Who," grumbled Gold.

"I've met nice snakes," said Harry. "Even some alright Slytherins."

"Har-har. The Moses thing is absolute rot, anyway. Archeological records show magic turning up independently in every single human society at around the same time as agriculture, long before Moses. The Babylonians had it first. You take one look at the Epic of Gilgamesh and it's obvious he's a wizard. But everybody likes to think they're special."

"You certainly do," answered Harry, with a grin.

He saw Gold's mother bite her lip, and thought he'd overstepped - which seemed strange, because that was exactly how they bantered at school, and Harry knew him to be more or less bulletproof when it came to verbal jabs. But Gold just laughed, and everything was okay again.

Later in the evening the rituals got less formal. The last portion of the ritual was nothing but singing. Avi kept refilling Harry's wine. Everyone started shooting sparks from the tips of their wands with the charm _Nasar_ , which sent out a fine golden cascade that was much prettier than the red sparks he'd learned to conjure in his first year. Harry didn't know the words or the tunes but did his best to mumble along, and joined them all in tearing paper links ("For the breaking of shackles and chains! For freedom from Egypt! For the thorough kicking of Pharaoh's nadgers and the sincere hope that You-Know-Who is in for the same, right Harry?") and finally, in sing-shouting " _L'Shana haba'ah bi'Yerushalayim_! Next year in Jerusalem!" - which made the chandelier crash to the table in a magnificent cascade of shards of harmless and apparently illusory glass, to loud applause.

That, it seemed, was the yearly grand finale. Harry thought it was all pretty brilliant. It was like being at the Burrow. It made him long for something he'd never had. A tradition, maybe, an identity. But above all, a family.

* * *

 

By the time they staggered off to bed Harry could barely think straight, but he did manage to catch Ben alone in the corridor. "I have one last question."

"Yeah?"

Harry lowered his voice. "Why... what happened with David? You all sort of... treat him like he's a precious goblet or something. I know he's the baby and all but-"

"It's more than that. He never told you?" Ben was very red. If he was trying to hide the pained look on his face, he wasn't sober enough to do it well. "He... " Ben hesitated. He disappeared into another moment, and came back with a photo album, opened to a page of photographs that all seemed to be taken in the same white, antiseptic room.

"That's him when he was four."

The young boy sulking in the photograph had Gold's eyes, but he was bald and frail. "I didn't know wizards could get cancer," Harry said stupidly.

"We're not much better at medicine than Muggles, really... Magic is a cheat, see. Most mediwizards don't actually know that much about the body. They don't usually have to - they can magic an accelerated healing or use a charm to remove a foreign poison. But how do you come up with a spell that just takes out the bad cells and leaves the rest when it's all _you_? It was all through his stomach. The potions they gave him had the same stuff in them that the Muggles get. Tried to kill the cancer and they nearly killed him."

The protectiveness and special treatment suddenly made sense.

"I'm, that's what I'm studying at Salem," slurred Ben, "Integration of Muggle medical theory with magical methodology. Magic with genetics and biochemistry and im-immunology. But it's, it's so hard to get wizards to _listen_ to anything a Muggle comes up with even if it's brilliant r'search - they fancy they're so much better than Muggles. I'm struggling for funding half the time and no matter what I do I'll be too late for David - "

"He's better now though, right?" asked Harry, thinking only to cheer him up. The Gold he knew seemed healthy enough when he wasn't getting himself beat up. He was particular about his thick, elegantly styled brown curls, and he certainly wasn't skinny any more.

"The cancer-"

"Not another _word,_ Ben."

Gold was standing at the end of the corridor, feet planted, glowering fiercely. They exchanged a few brief words in what Harry thought was Yiddish - Ben pleading, David angry - and then Ben slunk away.

"You don't mention this. To anybody. Alright, Potter?" Gold's voice was cold.

Harry nodded.

"Especially not Granger."

"Why not?"

"Many reasons. Pity. Guilt."

Harry frowned. It didn't seem likely, but he suddenly remembered the way Hermione had blushed at the mention of his name in their fifth year. "Did you two...?"

"Neyn." Gold waved a hand dismissively. "Hence the guilt. She'll think she ought to have _tried_ to like me more. That's no good for anyone. I refuse to be pitied."

"Oh." Harry felt like he'd sobered, but maybe not enough. It took him a moment to process. "You _are_ better, though, right?"

" _Don't_. Surely you, Potter, must know what it's like to be stepped around on tiptoe. Bad enough my family thinks I'm fragile."

Harry could understand that. He nodded, and turned to find the guest bedroom they'd given him. It didn't occur to him that Gold had never answered his question.


	2. A Golem with a Hole in its Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As a first-year, David Gold gets into an argument with a hat, makes enemies, uses very old magic, and happens upon his purpose.

"Now, form a line," Professor McGonnagall instructed the first years, "and follow me."

He still couldn't believe he was really here. He couldn't believe it had been permitted. The grand Gothic arches and towers and high walls of Hogwarts were a world away from white walls and sterile sheets - a distance he'd always felt so certain he would never cross. And he'd come here _alone_. Avi hadn't even sat with him on the train. Nobody was looking at him, nobody was asking if he was alright or if he needed any help. It was the most wonderful freedom in the world. David was nervous and excited and overjoyed and afraid, all at the same time. The joy was the strongest. He felt like his heart would burst.

As they entered the Great Hall there were collective gaps and whispers. So the stories his brothers had told him were true - the ceiling was really enchanted. It looked like the whole room extended upwards into the heavens.

"It's bewitched to look like the sky outside, I read about it in _Hogwarts, a History_ ," whispered a girl somewhere behind him. David paused and craned his neck.

Two behind him in line, a boy who was much bigger than David shoved at the boy between them, pushing everyone forward. "Hurry up, pipsqueaks," the bigger boy grunted.

David was short for his age. He'd been terribly thin until the chemo potions stopped. Now he was pudgy from his mother's doting and looked younger than he was. He didn't like being called little. The boy between them was not as short but still much smaller than the boy who'd shoved them. He looked scared. David's eyes flashed. "Oi! You oaf! Do you fancy your nose when it's still attached to your face?"

The bigger boy, who didn't seem to fully grasp that he was being threatened by someone a head shorter than him, opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment McGonagall cast them a glare so frosty that it shut both boys up tight.

_"Abbot, Hannah!"_

_"HUFFLEPUFF!"_

He wished they would hurry up. Suspense was always, always worse than even the worst knowledge. What house would he be in?

_"Boot, Terry!"_

_"RAVENCLAW!"_

He knew he was clever. He could be in Ravenclaw with Ben.

_"Finch-Fletchly, Justin!"_

_"HUFFLEPUFF!"_

Hufflepuff wasn't for him. It would have been nice to be with Samson and Avi, but he wasn't like them. He wasn't loyal. Avi trusted everyone implicitly and Samson would never lose faith in a friend no matter _what_ they did to him. David's trust in the world had been shattered one time too many. Loyalty? He picked holes in his best friends. He didn't have many friends to begin with.

_"Finnigan, Seamus!"_

_"GRYFFINDOR!"_

Everybody said he was brave. That was the thing you were _supposed_ to say. But David knew in his heart it wasn't true.

_"Gold, David!"_

He crossed to the school and sat. The hat descended over his eyes.

"Now," whispered a tiny voice in his ear, "you're an interesting one, my lad."

 _Do you read my mind?_ thought David, very deliberately.

"In a sort of a way - you know, it's not so much reading a book as it is looking at a painting. Many changing colours and layers. Bright, _very_ bright - razor-keen you are. And inquisitive, I see. You would do very well in Ravenclaw."

David let out a relieved breath.

"Except -"

 _What_?

"No, no, Ravenclaw won't do at all. Too pensive, too serene. Not for you. There's passion in you. And bitterness. Gryffindor, perhaps? You're brave - reckless, even-"

_Don't say I'm brave! I'm not brave!_

"What makes you so sure?"

_Can't you see it? It's right there. Sitting there in my head._

"Yes," said the hat. It sounded sad. "There's a gaping hole in the middle of your painting. How long did they give you?"

_Maybe ten years, if the growth doesn't speed up and I don't develop another one. I have what the Muggles call a genetic predisposition. They can't operate. See? It's not bravery when you have nothing to lose._

"Perhaps you are right... Well then. What do you want to do in that time?"

_Change everything. The whole world. It's all rubbish._

"That's a tall order. Are you always so angry?"

_Shouldn't I be? The universe fucked me over. I was **supposed** to be cured. What kind of G-D allows this?  
_

The hat chuckled in his ear.

"SLYTHERIN!"

* * *

 

He found an empty place at the Slytherin table. The conversation with the hat had left him angry.

Sitting across from him was a pale, blonde-haired boy with pointed features. "Are you the one that yelled at Goyle?" he asked, gesturing to a larger boy on his right side. It was the pusher from the line.

"Yeh, that's me," answered David, carelessly. He wanted the feast to start already.

"Are you a pureblood?" asked the blonde boy.

David had never been asked that before. He mistook it for mere curiosity. "Yes?"

The blonde boy looked impressed. "My name's Draco Malfoy," he said, offering David a handshake.

David got the impression he was supposed to know the name Malfoy already, but he didn't. "David Gold."

"Gold?" Malfoy retracted his hand like he'd been stung. "You're a _Gold_?"

"Something wrong?"

"You said you were a pureblood!"

"I am."

"But aren't your lot - you know - Foreign?"

"Not pureblood, that makes us?"

Malfoy sniffed. “See?” he said to Goyle. “Not real English wizards. Outsiders. You can tell by the accents, father says. _He_ talks like a Jew.” He said it as if it were a dirty word.

David felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. "I can talk even more like a Jew," he snapped, reaching for his wand. " _Parash!_ "

The stinging hex hit Malfoy on the arm. He yelped. "Keep your - foreign magic away from us! We're not supposed to be doing spells yet - I'll tell Snape-"

"I don't care if you do," sniffed David.

"You will! He's a friend of my father! He'll make you clean the whole dungeons!"

"I don't care! He'll say you're wrong! He's a grown-up! You _can't say_ things like that!" David knew it existed but he'd never heard anyone be so blunt about their hatred. He was red-faced with rage. It wasn't fair. It wasn't _right._

_"Ohhhh, it’s not fair, I’ll cry to teacher-“_

" _Tzaraath sh'va!"_

* * *

 

"What spell did you use on Mr. Malfoy?"

Professor Snape was very tall and very thin. He had a great hooked nose and black eyes. David liked his face. It had character. Snape didn't smile much - ever, maybe- but David preferred that to people who smiled for no reason.

"A skin-mottling hex, sir. It won't last long."

"How do _you_ know?" Malfoy demanded. His face was blotchy and his voice kept rising in pitch with every word. "It's not a proper spell, is it!? It could last for _ever!_ "

"Don't be stupid," hissed David, "I know what I'm doing."

Snape tilted his head. His expression was unreadable. "What is the incantation?"

"I - I'm not supposed to say, sir."

"I believe I am your professor, Gold, and I decide what you are 'supposed to do.'"

"It's a family secret."

"And it would have remained such, if you had not used it on a classmate."

David knew his brothers would have been disappointed. He didn't let it show. " _Tzaraath sh'va_. It means a skin disease. The sh'va makes it short. Temporary. It'll go away."

Snape's eyes glittered. His expression was impossible to read. "And what did Mr. Malfoy do to deserve this fate?"

David said nothing. Malfoy was looking at him with amazement.

"Well, Mr. Gold?"

"That's between him and me." Now that he was thinking straight again he had no desire for Snape's help. Or anyone's. It wasn't right. He would find a way to make it right.

Snape leaned in. "Slytherin is no place for honour among thieves, Mr. Gold."

"I don't care." _Apparently it's no place for a Jew either, and yet here I am._

"In that case, fifteen points shall be taken from Slytherin. Now both of you get out of my sight."

* * *

 

That night, David Gold learned that Slytherin house was neither fair nor right.

The whole house was angry that someone could have out them in the negative points before classes even started. And, led by Malfoy, the purebloods who ran the dorm had taken a set against him. They ganged up on them, six or seven of them, with wands and hexes. They seemed to think 'Jew' was an insult.

The first night he curled up in a ball underneath his blanket and cried until he slept. By the third night he'd stopped crying at all. By a week, he had gotten his brothers to teach him a warding spell that bounced most hexes away.

By three weeks, none of them dared attack him unless it was more than two on one.

He had been there a month when, alone in the common room very late at night, he heard a sniffling sound, like somebody crying. David put his transfiguration textbook aside and got up, looking for the source of the sound.

Another first-year sat at the foot of the steps in his pyjamas, shivering. His face looked sticky with dry tears. "Who're you?" asked David.

"Tommy - Tommy Tasker."

"What are you doing down here, Tommy Tasker?"

"They won't let me go up." The boy sniffed. "They - they found out I'm M-Muggleborn - and they say I'm making them dirty - by sharing a room-"

David set his jaw. He went up the stairs with his wand out. "Come with me."

In the dorm above, two third-years named Hector Claude and Septimus Morfan were playing exploding snap on Tommy Tasker's bed. They looked up at him. Morfan sniggered. "Well, look. It's the Jew."

"Fat little thing, isn't he? I thought pigs weren't kosher?"

Normally it would have hurt. This time he had a job to do. The insults rebounded off his sense of purpose. They were bigger than him, and more experienced wizards, and there were two of them. How could he possibly win this? He could hardly back down now. Tasker was watching him.

Maybe fighting them wasn't the answer. Maybe he could be more cunning than that. _I'm a Slytherin, aren't I?_

"That's Tasker's bed you're sitting on."

"We know," said Claude.

"He's a Mudblood. He can sleep on the common room floor. That's better than where he belongs."

David saw Tasker flinch in his peripheries. He fixed them with a stare. "Have you ever heard of the Golem?"

They looked like they wanted to laugh, but the quality of that stare was hard to turn away from.

"It was created by Judah Loew ben Bezalel, a Rabbi and a powerful wizard. In Prague, a long time ago, we were kept in ghettos like animals. They slaughtered our children in front of our eyes to keep us from growing too many. Rabbi Loew heard his peoples' misery and he fashioned out of clay a huge form - taller than a giant, and more powerful. Its arms were like tree trunks. Its eyes were empty and dead." As he spoke, David advanced forward with a slow and steady tread. His voice was low and rhythmic, almost musical.

"What are you doing?" demanded Morfan, looking around him uneasily.

"By the light of the flickering flame he read from the _Sefer Yezira,_ The Book of Creation. He filled the body of clay with energies of fire, and earth, and into the new clay of its forehead he carved the _Emet_ , the Hebrew characters for Truth. Truth holds power over life and death and so he brought breath into the Golem's body."

The flames of the lamps in the room began to flicker. "Stop," said Claude, uneasily.

"The Golem had been created for one purpose: to destroy the oppressors of Rabbi Loew's people. And when it was no longer needed in Prague, it slept, with their blood on its clay hands, until a time when it would be needed again. It has wakened many times. I think perhaps it is needed again."

"Tasker isn't a Jew!"

"You think the Golem only serves Jews?" asked David, serenely. "It defends all peoples who are oppressed and mistreated. Blood, birth, faith - it is all one to the Golem. It sees only the suffering and those who have hurt them. Now. Get off Tasker's bed. And leave him be."

They got off, staring uneasily at anything but David's calm face. "Your - freaky foreign magic doesn't scare me!" declared Claude, but the words were flimsier than a damp paper napkin. The third-years retreated down the steps to the common room, leaving David and Tasker alone.

"How did you do that with - the lights?"

"It's all in the voice," said David. That was old, old magic. The words were not important. He'd adjusted the story of the Golem of Prague more than a little for impact. It wasn't even truly Hebraic magic. His father had always told him that story in English or Yiddish, not Hebrew, but the rising and falling swell of his voice was the same as when he spoke prayers or incantations, and it had the same power. Power to transform perception. Power to influence. Subtle magic, but strong, in the right hands.

"Would - the - the Golem really come here for me?"

David smiled into the flickering light. "He would, Tommy. In fact, he's already here."


	3. The Haunting of Draco Malfoy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set four months after the Great Battle. Gold tries his hand at haunting. Malfoy wastes a loaf of bread.

"You know," said Myrtle, "The expression 'I'll sleep when I'm dead' is just an expression."

Gold was curled on the floor under the sinks in the abandoned girls' bathroom. He opened one eye, giving her a torpid look. "You again?" he groaned, and made an ineffectual attempt to bury his face in his robes. Unfortunately his robes, too, were transparent.

"I lived here first," snapped Myrtle. "Aren't the dungeons your place? Why are you _here_ if you don't want to keep me company? Or even talk to me?" She gave a mournful wail.

"Granger might come by later. I don't want to miss her."

"Ugh! Granger this, Granger that!" Myrtle seemed to have forgotten her woe in favour of rage. She kicked him in the stomach. It didn't hurt, but somehow the fact that it didn't hurt was worse than any pain she could have inflicted if they'd both been alive. "What's so special about _Granger_ , anyway?"

He raised his head to glower at her, giving up on sleep, for the moment. "She's intelligent, talented, caring - you can stop me anytime - passionate, brave -"

"-Willing to snog you in a loo-"

"Funny enough, I liked her before that happened."

"Then why'd you stop her?"

"Because. She'd have regretted it."

"So now you regret it instead."

Gold glowered. Given everything - all the warning signs and ticking clocks that snuffed out that weird little flicker of tension between him and Hermione Granger before it could ever kindle anything - he should not have regretted nipping the whole thing in the bud. He regretted it anyway. A weakness of character, perhaps, that irritating human business of needing to be needed.

"If you always knew there wasn't a hope, why d'you keep _doing_ this to yourself?"

"Because I'm inherently stubborn and self-destructive and because love is voluntary pain," Gold snapped, savagely and without thought. "Can't you just let me _pretend_ for a bit?!"

Myrtle raised an eyebrow at him. Gold was very aware she had ulterior motives, but he couldn't quite escape her point, no matter how hard he tried - he sounded pathetic. It wasn't like him at all to sit in complacency and do nothing, deluding himself, waiting.

"You're dead, David. You've got to move on." She nudged him with her foot again. "Stop moping around my toilet on the off chance Granger might come by. Moping's _my_ bit and I'm better at it than you are. Go out and do something healthy."

He got to his feet, still scowling. "What do ghosts consider healthy?"

"How about a spot of nice haunting?"

* * *

 

Malfoy Manor was in disrepair. A few months since the Great Battle and it looked quite abandoned, the once-grand gardens gone to seed. But it wasn't _wholly_ abandoned. One occupant still remained. Gold found Draco Malfoy in the study, bent over an old volume of what looked like family history.

Somehow, despite everything that'd happened - the fall from grace of so many pureblood families in the wake of the war, the complete ruination of the Malfoy name - Gold had expected to find him just as he'd been at school, well-kept and richly garbed and full of his own supposed superiority. He was dead wrong. Ha-ha. Maybe it was in a ghost's nature to hold onto the way things had been when they were alive... He would have to ask Myrtle.

Malfoy did not look like he had in school. He wore an opulent but wine-stained dressing gown with the sleeves pulled carefully over his forearms. His hair was wild and ill-kept and he had not shaved in days. There was a glass of blood-coloured wine at his elbow and a glassy, feverish look in his eyes.

Gold made himself comfortable on a desk behind Malfoy, and waited. He had all the time in the world. He was still getting used to that part.

Malfoy read for a long time, drinking intermittent sips, murmuring very quietly to himself. From where Gold was sitting it sounded mostly like names - those old, grand-sounding Roman names that so often characterized the truly old pureblood lines, or so Potter had told him. Malfoy's ancestry, no doubt.

Finally he seemed to find something in that book that upset him so much that he got to his feet, cursing - and found himself face to face with a ghost.

"Boo," said Gold, lazily.

"You." Malfoy's face darkened. "Why're _you_ here? Come to see me at my worst? Taunt me like I always taunted you?"

Gold shrugged. "You never taunted me very effectively."

"I made your life hell," said Malfoy, looking dubious.

 _You did at first_ , Gold wanted to say. Somewhere in him there was still a bruised eleven-year-old who couldn't stand to hear his faith turned into an insult. But the rest of him was too prone to empathy. And Malfoy was torturing himself. He didn't need any more guilt on his shoulders. There was already plenty to be guilty about. "It takes more than the likes of you to make a victim out of me, boychik. If anything, you toughened me up. I was a very spoiled child."

"Then what are you doing here?" asked Malfoy, with the barest hint of relief.

"Well, actually, I came here to haunt you, because apparently that's a thing I do now, but you look haunted enough already."

Malfoy looked down at himself. For a moment Gold thought he would be angry, but then he seemed to run out of energy utterly. Malfoy slumped back into the chair, palming the dregs of his drink. "I've been more or less let off. I should be happy."

He obviously wasn't, so Gold waited for more.

"Not even house arrest! I could go out and do anything I wanted now. Except. Who can I look in the eye? The whole wizarding world knows." Malfoy had begun to pace. "Potter. Potter had a hand in my getting off. Saved my life in the fiendfyre. I owe him a debt. Bad enough they destroyed us - they have to insult us with mercy!"

The words rang with disgust. But Gold knew it was not directed at Potter, not really. "'Us' - your family?"

"They've transferred my father from Azkaban to St. Mungo's. A lot of things at once. Fear-madness. Dementors. Drinking." He stared at the wine glass with disgust in his eyes. "My mother's there with him now. She thinks he's dying."

"I'd be sorrier to hear that if your father was less of an evil little tick, but-"

The glass smashed against dark oak panelling, directly behind Gold's head. "I KNOW!" roared Malfoy.

Gold hadn't been consciously trying to provoke him, just running his mouth off. In retrospect he realized it was a horrible thing to say. Him and his fat mouth. Malfoy hadn't been wrong about that much. Gold stared at him.

"He was my _father_. You don't have to tell me what kind of man he was. I _lived_ with him, I lived _under_ him and I know. Better. Than anyone." Malfoy looked demented. "We chose the wrong side, you didn't, well done you. Hah. As if it was ever a _choice._ " Malfoy picked up a book from the desk and waved it under Gold's nose. "I read your bloody Sartre. Remember? When I asked if you could turn back time and you said no, but I could change the future? Did it change, Gold? Did it?!" He gestured at the ruined study around him.

"That part was up to you, Malfoy."

" _No it wasn't!_ Do you think there was a simple moment when I could have said 'no, this isn't what I want' and turned away?"

"I think that was every moment." Gold's eyes lingered on Malfoy's hands. They were shaking. He looked more and more fevered. "How much have you had to drink?" he asked, quietly.

"Too much. Or not enough. I would offer you one but I don't see how you could drink it."

Gold was surprised even by this small gesture of civility. "I would accept your hospitality, if I could," he answered. "Moses, I miss food and drink."

"How did you die?" asked Malfoy, with ill-concealed fascination.

"Your dear Auntie Bella was a little too quick for me."

Malfoy was quiet for a moment. "...I don't know what one is supposed to say to the recently deceased."

Gold shrugged. "I'm not that bothered about it. I walked in knowing I wouldn't walk out, I chose my path."

Malfoy's face darkened again. "You and your Sartre and your paths. Maybe it's true for _your_ lot. Your snakes, Granger, Potter, all of you - you all act so high and mighty just because you happened to be on the winning side."

"We were on the morally right side, Malfoy, and it happened to be the side that won."

"No! _Listen_ to me. My father was scum and my mother was weak and it's been that way for _generations_." Now he picked up the large tome of ancestors he had been reading when Gold first arrived. "Doesn't matter how far back you go. Dark magic and Grindlewald and the Goblin Rebellion. It's in my _blood_ , Gold. My family - everything I knew. What's bred in the bone will out in the flesh. You think you chose, you think you made such better choices than me just because you were the 'good Slytherins' - but I have seen your _family_."

For the first time, there was an unabashed and unhidden jealousy in Draco's voice. Gold had a sudden, clear memory of arriving home on the Hogwarts express after his fourth year to be greeted on the platform by his whole family - his parents crying with joy the way they always did, his brothers hugging him as though their arms could keep him tethered to the mortal world. All so grateful that he'd lived another year that they suffocated him with love. At the time he had not noticed the blonde boy get off the train behind him to be greeted only by an unsmiling servant.

"There's things you don't know about my family," said Gold.

"I know they opposed the Dark Lord." And the words that went unsaid, written across Malfoy's face, were, _and they actually loved you_.

Both true. Both taken for granted. It seldom occurred to Gold that parents could fail their children. He hesitated. "What about Pettyfer?" he asked, at last. It was painful to mention her. She'd always been his favourite snake. "Didon Pettyfer is a relative of yours. Her family were bad all the way through. She changed."

"Her father was low in the ranks. Unimportant. I was being groomed for the Death Eaters as long as I can remember. The Dark Lord-" He'd begun to shake more now. "He wanted me to - he would have killed me - "

Gold got to his feet, on pure instinct, thinking only to steady Malfoy before he fell and hurt himself. Then realized he couldn't. Malfoy looked at him with red-rimmed, stricken eyes. "My parents - he was going to - and I failed him-"

"Alright. Sit. You're still alive, Draco. He's gone."

Malfoy collapsed into his chair, hyperventilating. "I took the mark," he panted, "I took it. It's too late."

"He's gone," Gold repeated, squatting on his haunches to look Malfoy in the eye. "The mark doesn't mean anything now."

But Malfoy wouldn't meet his eyes. "It's in my skin. My blood." He'd never sounded so helpless.

Gold slapped him. His hand passed through Malfoy's face, but the chill of it was enough to shock Malfoy into silence. "Come with me."

"Wh-what?"

Gold had already started to drift from the study. "Do you have any bread?"

"I thought you couldn't eat."

"It's not for me."

Malfoy found a loaf of bread, hard and stale. He was confused and pale, but this new confusion had replaced his hysteria.

Gold brought him outside, to the small decorative stream that ran the boundaries of Malfoy Manner. Then he stopped him dead. "If you could turn back time. What would you do?"

Malfoy's voice was quiet, but he did not hesitate. "Erase my connection with the Dark Lord. Refuse the mark. Run far, far away."

"You're still alive, Malfoy. You have time left. Take the bread and tear it into small pieces."

He did as he was told. "Is this... more Jew magic?"

"There's nothing magical about it. This is Tashlikh. The casting off of sins. Technically it should be done on Rosh Ha'Shanah, but this might be a special case."

"So the pieces are the sins."

"You cast them into the water. I'll say the prayer, I think I know it by heart still."

"As if it could be so easy," sneered Malfoy, when Gold had finished reciting. "This is meaningless superstition." But he began to tear off pieces of bread and toss them into the water.

"Gestures have what meanings we give them. That mark is nothing but ink and a summoning spell. But belief makes it evil. If you can believe in the one you can believe in the other. Or you can believe in neither, and attempt to forgive yourself not because of this or that symbol but because you know you want to change."

"Why are you doing this, Gold." His voice was so dulled, it did not even sound like a question.

"Fucked if I know," answered Gold. "It passes the time? I'm dead. Eternity is a while."

* * *

 

He came back a week later, and found Malfoy composed and well-dressed. He was directing the restoration of the mansion grounds. Old Lucius, it seemed, had pulled through.

"Boo."

"Sod off, you fat lump, or I'll have the Bloody Baron pay a visit."

"Glad to see things are back to normal around here. Still calling teacher on the other children?"

"Still mooning after Granger?"

"Well, naturally. Ghosts have inherently static natures. The dead are not really capable of change. Unlike the living."

Malfoy threw the copy of Jean-Paul Sartre's _Existentialism and Humanism_ through Gold's head.


	4. A Fitting Tribute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just before Christmas in their fifth year, David and Hermione do something the elves really appreciate. Gold is not always a serious intellectual and Hermione is her father's daughter.

It didn't surprise Hermione even a little bit that Gold could sing. She probably could have guessed from the way he spoke his Hebrew incantations, if it had ever occurred to her to wonder before now. It just sickened her a little bit, because she was trying to put to bed the last few irritating traces of the mind-crush she'd had on him and Gold, in his typical contrary way, was making it incredibly difficult to do so. Probably it wasn't on purpose, but you never really knew with him.

What did surprise her was his choice of song.

" _Ooh, darlin', give me one more chance-_ "

"The Jackson Five? Really?"

"What?"

Hermione had half-expected him to get embarrassed when he realized he was singing aloud, as most people would. Somehow he'd managed to make _her_ feel foolish instead. They were walking the secret passageway that led to the kitchens, carrying bags and bags of small woolen hats. "I... would have expected... I don't know, something more high-minded."

"Don't slag the Jackson Five, Granger. Tiny MJ had more soul in his prepubescent little feet than most artists have in their whole bodies."

"Alright, I'll rephrase that - something less wholesome."

"Less wholesome? I could do you some Spice Girls."

The mental image reduced Hermione to giggles. "You're kidding."

Gold's poker face was impeccable. She shoved him. "Come on. You're far too proud an intellectual to be caught dead singing Muggle bubblegum pop."

"I _like_ bubblegum pop."

"Sure you do. You're testing me. You just want me to admit to liking the Spice Girls so you can feel superior and tease me. You probably like Nirvana and that sort of alt rock that's very smart but also difficult to listen to."

"I'd love for you to admit to liking the Spice Girls," said Gold, looking very earnest. "Then I wouldn't be the only one. I had my obligatory angsty Nirvana phase in third year."

Merlin, maybe he _wasn't_ kidding. "I... they're a very guilty pleasure."

"None of my pleasures are ever guilty," said Gold, simply. "Life's too short."

Hermione thought that explained a lot about him. "I'm surprised you listen to Muggle music in the first place, honestly."

"Why, because I'm ostensibly a pureblood?"

She hoped that didn't seem too awful. "Well... _yes_. Most purebloods don't seem to know a thing about Muggles."

Gold laughed. "Granger, you overestimate the wizarding world. We don't have enough _people_ to have an independent arts scene. We're parasitic on Muggles for ninety per cent of our culture and not at all fond of admitting it."

"What about the Wyrd Sisters? Or that, ah, what's her name, that awful Warbeck woman?"

"Oh, sure, we have a few musical acts, but they're derivative. 1960s Muggle hippie counterculture? We nicked the rock'n'roll sound, dark magic became an acceptable, or at least a popular, song topic, the popularity of recreational potions skyrocketed and wizards started cutting their hair very short."

She snorted. "Shouldn't that be growing their hair long?"

"Neyn, they'd always had long hair. We figured out that the Muggles were changing their styles and then we got confused and did it backwards. But we got the core of it right - it was a break from tradition. And now it's considered terribly posh and old-fashioned. Professor Snape's the only wizard under sixty I've ever seen wear long hair. What was I saying?"

"One mention of the word 'hair' and you're totally derailed."

"You love my hair. Don't lie."

Hermione wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of admitting it. "You were saying about magical music being parasitic."

"Well, the wizard artists all sort of slap you in the face with their magic-ness, don't they? D'you really think every song would be loaded with spell references if we had a thriving musical industry?"

"It has to make a great point about being magic for the sake of its own identity."

"As do we all. Magical music acts try very hard to remind you because when you get down to it, most of us aren't even aware that what we're listening to is Muggle in origin. It all gets played on the radio, and we don't pay attention. Take Malfoy, for example. He's still very much in his angsty Nirvana phase."

"How d'you know that?"

"I share a dormitory segment with him." Gold made a face. "I think I probably got into bad Muggle pop in the first place just because it irritates him."

Hermione knew she should not encourage him to pick any more fights, but she didn't trust herself not to laugh at the thought of Malfoy's face in reaction to 'Wannabe', so she held her tongue and changed the topic. "So if most wizards don't even realize, why do _you_ know?"

"My family likes to keep one foot in the Muggle world," said Gold, clearly smug over his own culturedness.

Hermione raised an eyebrow at him. "So you know your Muggle music pretty well."

"I'd like to think so."

"Are you familiar with the Grateful Dead?"

He looked at her blankly. "Er-"

"The Who."

"Who?"

"David Bowie?"

"Of course I know _Bowie_."

"Because he was, in fact, a wizard."

"Ah. Aaaactually that explains a great deal."

"Tom Waits?"

"No?"

"Ben Folds."

"Why are all these people named after verbs?"

"Simon & Garfunkel?"

"I knew a Garfunkel in Hebrew School."

"So you don't actually know anything about the history of Muggle music at all."

"I know every song the Beatles ever wrote!"

"So do things that live under rocks." Hermione had shown her true colours; despite her occasional dalliances into pop (a girl needed an outlet sometimes), she was, in truth, a Classic Rocker. It was the fault of her father, a true first-gen Hippie, who'd supplemented her flute lessons with a thorough grounding in psychedelia. It was one of the few things left that they had at all in common. Something she was determined to hold onto, even if no-one in the Wizarding world understood.

"Alright,” she said at last, a grin stealing across her face, “because I'm very kind, I'll give you one more chance. Bob Dylan?"

Gold grinned. "Now _him_ I know."

Hermione wasn't taking any chances. "Prove it."

" _When the rain is blowin' in your face_  
_And the whole world is on your case_ -"

Bollocks. Damn him to hell, him and his strangely raspy, tuneful voice. She stared very hard at the ground ahead of her feet.

" _I could offer you a warm embrace-_ "

"Gold?" Hermione's voice was urgent.

He stopped singing, opening his eyes. "Yeah?"

"You need to not sing that song."

"Why?"

"Because I might do something stupid, like snog you blind, and we both agreed that was a bad idea."

"Oh." He was as embarrassed as she was, now. The passageway went silent. Hermione contemplated her shoes with such intensity that she was half-certain they'd burst into flames. It wasn't irrational, she told herself, it wasn't her fault - surely anyone on earth would be at least a _little_ attractive while they were singing _that_ song.

Just as she was beginning to be certain the silence would kill her, he quietly began another song.

" _Come, gather 'round, people, wherever you roam  
And admit that the waters around you have grown_  
_And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone_ -"

Ah, yes. That was why they were down here, wasn't it? Change. Hermione laughed, and joined in.

* * *

 

They did not stop when they arrived at the kitchens, tickled the pear to enter, hefted the bags of clothes through the portrait-hole.

" _The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast_ -"

The elves looked up almost as one from their work, and blanched to see Hermione's face. They knew her, they knew it was her who had left the woolen hats about the common room for them to find. Only Dobby wore a smile.

"Miss shouldn't be here!"

"Back to her house, please, miss, we are not wanting-"

For a moment, Hermione was stung and intimidated by their stares and wanted nothing so much as to slink back to her common room and forget that she had made herself so hated. But Gold was still singing beside her, and it gave her strength.

" _The slow one now will later be fast_  
_As the present now will later be past_ -"

"We are not wanting clothes! Take them back!"

Without stopping to explain they made for the great woodstove at one end of the room, which heated the many ovens. Gold opened the door, releasing a wave of dry heat.

" _The order is rapidly fadin'_  
_And the first one now will later be last_ -"

One-by-one they tipped the bags of clothes - all Hermione's weeks of work - into the fire.

"- _For the times they are a-changin'_."

The elves burst into applause.

Hermione couldn't remember the last time she had been applauded. Pink from the praise and the heat of the flame, she smiled at her feet. She raised her voice over the cheers. She had prepared what she was going to say, remembering everything she had come to learn about Elfish culture and all the mistakes that came of good intentions without wisdom. "I'm very sorry I didn't listen to what you all wanted - Miss Granger is very sorry. She's going to do things differently now, and listen to the people she wants to help."

A little bow, and she stepped back, amid cheers and high, squeaking whistles. Gold, to her surprise, was clapping too.

Dobby bobbed over to them like a helium-filled balloon. "That was a very very good speech, miss. Dobby is sure they will like miss more now. And miss did not say 'I'!"

Hermione glowed.

"What do the pamphlets say, Dobby?"

"They say, many house elves are not treated like proper creatures, Mister Gold sir, even though we are very powerful! And that it is not right! And that He Who Must Not Be Named thinks elves are scum and so elves must prove him wrong!"

"Mister Gold likes the sound of that," said Gold, with relish.

"Dobby thinks the next step is to remind elves they serve better when they are rested and content."

A flame of excitement lit in Hermione’s breast. "To take care of their masters they must take care of themselves! Tell them that!"

The little elf cleared his throat. "Dobby would like a favour in return for helping."

Hermione had to admit to herself - even with all her pleas for elves to demand payment, it wasn't what she had expected. "Er - anything you want, if it's in my power. Er. In Miss Granger's power."

"How many are there in S.P.E.W.?" He enunciated each letter. Nobody had ever done that before.

"Well - Harry and Ron are sort of - " she slumped in defeat. "Really it's just us two."

That seemed to please Dobby very well. "Dobby would like to be the president of S.P.E.W., Miss Granger."

"Of a two-person club?"

"Dobby would rather familiarize himself with the leadership role in a low-stakes setting, miss."

Behind her, Gold stifled a snort of laughter. Hermione fought not to let her consternation show up on her face. Give up presidency of S.P.E.W.? The group was her brainchild, even if it was her sadly misshapen brainchild.

But she could hardly keep the role of leadership in elf rights out of the hands of the elves. And they were a serious social justice organization. She shook his tiny hand. "Agreed, Dobby. I'd be proud to call you the president of our group."

"Does Dobby get a special badge?" He pointed to the S.P.E.W. badge pinned to his chest, comically oversized on his tiny body.

"Don't see why not," said Gold, nudging Hermione.

"I'll see to making one," said Hermione.

"Can Dobby keep this badge too?"

"Er, if you like?"

"Dobby likes badges."

* * *

 

In the end, Hermione even showed willing by eating a few of the Christmassy tea-cakes the elves brought them. Gold showed rather more than willing, and they left with a handful wrapped up for later, and a steaming mug of cocoa each. Ten minutes later they were walking along the bridge. A heavy, silent snow had begun to fall.

"Is it weird?" Hermione asked, out of the blue. "Being Jewish while the rest of us get excited over Christmas?"

"As a kid I felt left-out," Gold admitted. "Think I felt left out of most things, really.”

“You’re not alone in that,” said Hermione, thinking of her own childhood, of the books that had been better friends to her than her classmates ever could be. She couldn’t easily picture Gold as the sort of lonely bookworm she had been. He attracted followers like flies; did he know real loneliness?

“Sure felt like it,” he remarked, pursing his lips, as if he’d read her thoughts. Then he broke into a wry grin. “These days I'm too proud," he added. "I don't want your stupid over-commercialized holiday."

"What about Hannukah?"

"Hannukah really isn't very important. American Jews blew it out of proportion so their kiddlies wouldn't get sad."

"Still, though - do you ever wish it got paid a bit more attention here?" She'd been thinking about this a while. Ever since the first Christmas decorations had begun to go up and she'd noticed a scowl on his face.

Gold shook his head. "You don't need another cause to champion, Granger, you've done enough for me."

They paused at the center of the bridge, sitting with their backs up against the stone to enjoy the view. The river gulley that ran through the Hogwarts grounds was nothing short of magnificent in the falling snow, a great tunnel of falling flakes that seemed to extend forever into the distance. Hermione shivered. Gold's massive, well-cut pea coat was a far better match for the weather than her light cloak.

"Here, lean against me, I'm warm," Gold suggested.

Hermione bit her lip, and shifted to rest her head and shoulders against his broad torso.

 _Merlin_ , he was comfy. Warm and soft. Gold put an arm loosely around her shoulders - holding in even more heat - and tucked his chin over her head. They sat in silence, their breath steaming in the cold air.

Within minutes, Hermione was asleep.

Gold didn't move for a very long time. He wondered if heartbreak was supposed to feel this peaceful.

* * *

 

"Hey, Gold, did you see?"

Anthony Goldstein was the only other member of the D.A. who'd ever seemed vaguely put off by the room of requirement's sudden growths of holly and mistletoe. They were, in fact, extremely distantly related, descended from the same family of jewelers in the same tiny schtetl about three hundred years back. It wasn't enough to make them want to have anything to do with each other, because as far as Gold was concerned Anthony was a precious little swot, but it was enough to keep them coolly pleasant to each other.

"See what?"

"There's a menorah in the Great Hall. Big one."

"Damn it, Granger."

And when Hannukah actually started, a different audio tape - charmed so that they would work in a wizard radio, Gold had _n_ o _idea_ how she had done that - showed up in his dorm room every evening.

It turned out The Who were really really good. And Malfoy hated them almost as much as he hated the Spice Girls.


	5. The Soldiers of Dumbledore's Army, part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in year seven. Neville Longbottom shows his Gryffindor side. David Gold shows his Slytherin side.

He had never expected anything in particular of Neville Longbottom. Clumsy, hapless, under-confident, a sheep of a boy, without initiative or ambition, and not even a strong wizard besides - nothing special at all. Gold didn't believe in fate, but he did believe in probability, and by that token Longbottom was doomed for mediocrity just as surely as Hermione was destined for greatness.

He'd been so wrong.

The house allegiances had begun to break down. Gold was not in the habit of gratitude - it seemed the world owed him something, in reparation - and so it seemed not so much a blessing as a slap in the face that it took the fucking Death Eaters to make the school finally forget its colours and band together.

And even so, the Slytherins were still largely left out. The four tables of the Great Hall were a sea of variegated red, blue and yellow neckties, but the green was almost all pooled off to one side.

He and the other snakes sat at the Gryffindor table today, aside from a few scattered members with friends amid the Huffs and the Ravens. Gold was doing his Arithmancy homework while he ate, and getting a lot of odd looks for it.

Seamus peered at the book upside-down, trying to make sense of a number chart. "Can you predict the future with that?"

Seamus was one of the few Gryffindors who didn't merely tolerate Gold, but actually seemed to like him. It was... a refreshing novelty. Gold glanced up through his brows. "Sort of. It's all about probabilities. Taking odds from past events, determining if-then likelihood scenarios and applying them to future events."

"So what does it predict?"

"Well, nothing's certain, but it seems very likely that the Chudley Cannons will lose their game tomorrow, Slytherin will win the house cup, and there'll be blood in the halls of Hogwarts before the year is up," said Gold, his lips thinning.

Seamus returned his grim look. "But we knew all that, didn't we."

At that moment - as if to verify Gold's prediction - a Gryffindor third-year came barrelling through the double doors into the Great Hall, his eyes wide and frightened. Hot on his heels was Alecto Carrow.

" _-Contraband!_ "

"Well, he's in for it," whispered Seamus, wincing. Most of the Great Hall had turned their heads downwards, making a point of not watching.

The Gryffindor third-year skidded to a halt in front of the Gryffindor table, his exits cut off, suddenly realizing Carrow was too close for him to blend in amongst the line of red ties. He covered his face. "-Don't! Don't curse me - I don't have anything-"

"Liar! I saw it!"

"I don't - It's nothing!"

She flicked her wand. The Gryffindor's pockets suddenly turned themselves inside out, emptying quill stubs and gobstones onto the stone floor. And finally - a blank piece of parchment.

"See?! Nothing!"

But Carrow did not seem to see. Her smile was the grin of a shark who has scented blood. " _Accio_." The parchment flew into her hand.

Across from Gold, Seamus had gone white as a sheet.

Carrow tapped it with her wand. " _Finite incantatem._ " Like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, the parchment unfolded into the glossy pages of _The Quibbler_. _C_ ontraband of the highest order. In the days of Umbridge it had been easy enough to keep them hidden, and they travelled the school like wildfire. But Snape was smarter than that. They had become precious and dangerous.

"Shite," whispered Seamus. "Oh, _shite_ \- that bloody idiot, transfiguring it never works any more - _Gold, we have to do something, Neville wrote an article in that issue and if she sees it she'll torture him-_ "

" _Why didn't he use a pseudonym?!_ " Gold demanded, in the same whisper.

" _He did, Neville's bollocks at pseudonyms -_ " All at once, Seamus pulled out his wand and got to his feet. " _Stupefy! Accio Quibbler!_ "

Alecto Carrow's eyes crossed in her head. She folded to the floor like a limp rag-doll. The magazine struggled out of her grip and fluttered its way over to them. Gold cast a wary glance to the head table, ready as always to duck and cover, but Snape was, once again, absent. He hadn't been at a meal in weeks. Maybe he felt the arrows of hatred directed at him by every student in that hall - or maybe he simply didn't need to feed like a human any more. As it was, their only witnesses at the head table were McGonnagall and Flitwick, who hastily pretended to be deep in conversation and not looking, nosiree.

Seamus shoved _The Quibbler_ between the pages of Gold's Arithmancy textbook. "Here, take that and keep it safe, alright?"

Gold nodded, and glanced at Alecto. "She won't stay down long."

"No she won't." Seamus met his eyes. Both boys knew exactly what the other was thinking.

"Want to be anywhere other than here?" Gold offered.

"Bloody right I do." And Seamus bolted from the hall, with Gold in tow.

_What are Muggles Really Like?_

_a brief treatise, by N. Longshanks DeVille_

_Many of us have been told by teachers, authorities and even our own families that Muggles are dirty, stupid and ignorant. We've been told that Muggles are responsible for oppressing wizards throughout history and barring us from our proper place at the top of the social order. Nothing could be further from the truth._

_Let's start with 'stupid'. I know 'stupid'. I've lived with 'stupid' every day of my life and I know it when I see it. Have you ever ventured into Muggle London? We all have, at some point, even the purest of purebloods. Have you looked up at the tall skyscrapers coated with glass, the trains that whoosh by every few minutes, faster than any broomstick, the beautiful palaces and great buildings? Have you gone into the Royal London Hospital and seen the strange beeping machines and the not-potion mixtures that make people better? Have you gone into the British Museum and seen the works of art on display? Have you turned on a Muggle radio and heard music fill your ears? Can you even begin to guess how a Muggle radio works?_

_We can do all these things very easily, so we huff and feel superior. But Muggles have done all that **without magic**. Think about that. What pushes that train along? How do you help a patient whose arm has been crushed if you can't just spell the bone back together? How do you make music come out of a little box without tiny people inside to play it? You have to use your head. And that's what Muggles do. That's what they have always done. And we wizards get so caught up in magicking our way out of a problem that we sometimes forget to think. Imagine if we learned to think the way Muggles do - the marvellous things we could create. We have so much to learn from Muggles._

_What about the music I mentioned, and the art? Wizards can do that without magic, I hear you say - they often do. And that is exactly it. When it comes to ways of expressing all our deepest emotions, wizards are exactly like Muggles, right down to the kinds of music we play, the things we think are beautiful and the ways we like to spend our free time._

_So what are Muggles really like? Well, if you've ever known a Muggle, really known one, you'll know they're no different than us, not really. Not in the ways that matter. They feel all the same feelings, all the sorrows and joys and fears. They have families they love, dreams they work for and hopes they cherish. And they deserve to be treated with the same respect we give each other._

_Muggles aren't dirty - they aren't stupid - and if they are ignorant, it's only because we've kept them that way. So stand in solidarity with the Muggles that He Who Must Not Be Named abuses and persecutes. They are really no different from your brother or sister._

"So what do you think?" asked Neville, anxiously, sitting cross-legged beside him against the cold stone wall of the sixth floor corridor and fidgeting with his shirtsleeves. They were taking a risk, reading it in the corridors, but Gold's dormitory was every bit as dangerous and more. He'd been tching to read it ever since the incident in the Great Hall. It was certainly more than enough to get Neville tortured again.

"It's good," said Gold, "Really good. Apart from the penname, which is, as Finnigan said, bollocks."

A sudden sound met their ears - a yell, followed by a scream.

"What was that?" asked Neville.

Gold got quickly to his feet, transfigured his copy of _The Quibbler_ into a text on weight loss, folded it up and tucked it into his breast pocket. They both already knew what it was.

They followed the sound down the corridor, peering round a corner. Amycus Carrow had a pretty fourth-year Hufflepuff by her hair. Nearby, Alecto Carrow watched and snickered while a handsome Slytherin named Gideon Rowle looked on.

"Say it!"

She was crying silent tears, but no words left her mouth.

"Say it! Mudblood scum! Don't deserve to be touched by a pureblood - you ought to be kissin' Rowle's feet! Say you want it!"

Gold choked on his own disgust. Pressed against the wall beside him, Neville caught Gold's eye. There was steel in the Gryffindor's face. _'I'll make a distraction_ ,' he mouthed, ' _you get her out_.'

Gold nodded. Neville mouthed the count of three, then aimed a spell around the corner. " _P'tzatza piel_!"

The spell went off like a bomb, spewing thick, heavily scented blue smoke on every dimension. Confused yells erupted around him. It was not a spell the Carrows knew well enough to defuse. It would hang there in the air for hours. Gold rounded the corner - he couldn't see a hand in front of his own face for smoke - grabbed what he prayed for dear life was the girl's wrist, and ran. Behind him he could hear Neville throwing hexes, buying them time.

His prayer seemed to have been answered. When they rounded the corner again and cleared most of the smoke he saw that she was running with him, tears streaming from her face.

They made it as far as the sixth floor staircase before Gold started to pant for breath. He could hear the Carrows' angry mutterings in pursuit, amplified by the winding stone corridors. Gold turned to her and took out his wand. " _Avar lev."_

Even to his eyes, she seemed to disappear _-_ not from view, but from notice. It was hard to look directly at her. "They - won't see you," he breathed, "Don't be afraid."

"You!" Carrow had his wand aimed at Gold's chest. Behind him came Alecto, dragging a _Petrificus totalis-_ bound Neville Longbottom by his hair, and Gideon Rowle close at her heel. "That one - the fat one - Longbottom's crony! He must have set off the smoke!"

Gold wanted to say _I'm his comrade, not his crony_ , but he wasn't sure it was totally true any more. He looked up at the Carrows with expertly-feigned startlement and confusion. It took a fight to keep the last traces of breathlessness from his voice. "What? What'd I do?"

He already knew it wouldn't be enough. They knew him by now as an outspoken, Muggle-loving troublemaker. "You've always done something," said Amycus. "You're too close to where it happened. Had to be involved somehow."

"Show us your wand," demanded Alecto.

"Why? I haven't _done_ anything, I don't even know what's going on."

Her eyes flashed. " _Crucio_!"

It was like cold needles, a searing and freezing pain that crept along the lines of his bones, filled his stomach and his veins and poured like lava into his skull. Gold slumped to his knees, clutching his head. And then it was over, as quickly as it had started. They didn't dare curse a pureblood for too long, it seemed.

"Wand," Alecto repeated.

Gold held out his wand. Alecto touched the tip of her own wand to his.

" _Priori incantato_."

The last echo of a summoning spell, used hours ago, breathed out of the point of contact. _Priori incantato_ only delivered Latinate spells. "See?" Gold demanded breathlessly, snatching his wand back. His head was ringing with pain. "I- didn't have _anything_ to do with any smoke bomb."

For a moment the Carrows seemed to flounder. Then Alecto smiled. "So, not the wand... a Weasley's product, then?"

"Turn out your pockets."

Gold turned out the pockets of his robes. Loose change, the stub of a candle, and an India rubber. Nothing else.

Amycus poked him in the chest with his wand, right above the folded-up and transfigured _Quibbler_. The shape of the paper was just visible through his robes. "What's this?"

"Nothing."

"Oh, I very much doubt that, boy."

Gold set his jaw and fixed his gaze on his shoes. "It's private."

"Not any more it's not. Give it here."

Reluctantly, Gold took the paper from his pocket and handed it over. Amycus Carrow unfolded the page with a delighted laugh. "' _Spell Yourself Skinny!_ '" he read. "' _A wizard's guide to rapid and effective weight loss!_ '"

Gold said nothing, keeping his eyes down.

" _'Sick of being mocked? Low on self-esteem? We have the solution!_ '"

"I don't want it any more," mumbled Gold. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears. _N. Longshanks DeVille? Really, Neville?_

"Ohh, I think you should have it," said Amycus, grinning the grin of a predator, and tucked it back into Gold's pocket with a mocking little pat. From the size of that grin, it was obvious he had no intention to let Gold forget about this little incident in future. "Right Rowle?"

Rowle was too busy laughing to reply.

"Come on then - leave Piggy to it. Let's get this one to the dungeons." Amycus gestured to the captive and frozen Neville, whose eyes - the only part of him free to move - sought out Gold and widened. Gold met his gaze and winked.

" _Gelah gviyah_ ," Gold murmured, when they were gone. The fourth-year Hufflepuff girl suddenly became visible again. "You alright?" he asked, all trace of earlier embarrassment gone.

"Er- yeah - they didn't hurt me, they just..."

"Rowle thinks he can have anything he wants. Or anybody."

She nodded, knuckling tears out of her eyes. "You - you two shouldn't have h-helped me... He's not going to stop..."

"He will if he can't get to you. We're not beat yet. There's still good people around."

"I don't see them," she whispered. There was despair in her voice.

Gold reached into his breast pocket and took out the folded paper again. A tap of his wand, and it transfigured itself back into _The Quibbler_. "Here," he said, holding it out to her, "have a read of that."

She stared at it. "It's - a _Quibbler_? But they're really rare, I couldn't - It takes ages to get one - How did you-?"

Gold tapped his nose and grinned. "Lessons from Slytherins. Lure them off the scent. Normally, Carrow finds anything in your pockets -"

"-He checks to see if it's transfigured."

"The trick is to find something that already seems embarrassing enough that he won't question it. Something he'd never want to hold onto himself. He loves humiliation, our Amycus - almost as much as his sister loves pain."

The tears had stopped. She flipped through the magazine. "That's not going to work too many more times, though."

"I don't need it to," said Gold, with a shrug, "I've read that through already. It's dangerous keeping it around, in my house. Take it to Hufflepuff and spread the word, alright? Dumbledore's Army aren't going down without a fight."

"You're in the D.A.?"

Gold nodded deeply- almost a bow. "To hell and back, I am. Proud to answer to Longbottom in Potter's stead. _Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it_."

"...Thank you." She clutched the magazine to her chest.

"It's not me that needs thanks - I'm not the one being dragged to the dungeons by the Carrows." He let out a distracted breath, running a hand through his styled hair and inadvertently ruining it. "We should have had the opposite roles, Longbottom's quicker than me and I'm better at spells - but no, he had to be the martyr and get himself caught instead of me." Somehow he was both deeply grateful and annoyed at the same time. "I'd better go get him out of there. If I can. Bloody Gryffindors."

The fourth-year looked him in the eye. Her gaze was a steady blue. "I'm coming with you."


	6. The Soldiers of Dumbledore's Army, part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in year seven. Severus Snape knows too much.

_"I'm coming with you."_

There was no time for this. His headache had not faded; it sapped at his patience and muddled his thoughts. Gold smiled and shook his head. "No, you're not, but thanks," he said, and turned to head to the dungeons.

"Hey!" The pretty Hufflepuff girl chased after him and planted herself in front of him. "I've got just as much reason to help him as you do! I'm nobody's damsel in distress!"

"Never said you were. The D.A. have training for this."

"I can throw a hex pretty good," she argued. "I won't get in your way."

"My methods are... unorthodox." He was disposable. She had a future.

"Stop trying to play hero and listen to me!" The girl looked him dead in the eye. "Carrow just gave Rowle full leave to _rape_ me. D'you get that? _This is my business too and if you expect me not to fight you've got another thing coming._ "

Gold opened his mouth and shut it. The remarkable part about it, he thought, was that she was still crying, through all of this, and it didn't diminish her one little bit. "Fine," he said, at last, setting off again at a half-run. "But follow my lead and don't do anything stupidly heroic."

She knuckled tears off her face and scoffed. "No, that's your job? As the man with something to compensate for?"

 _I like her_ , thought Gold, in spite of himself. "Blokes show off a lot when you're around, I'm guessing."

"You have no idea."

"No, I probably don't. What's your name?"

"Susannah Clearwater."

"David Gold."

"Gold?" She looked at him in surprise. "Like... Samson and Avi Gold?"

 _Ah, yes. Hufflepuff_. "They're my brothers," said Gold, grudgingly.

"But-" she blushed faintly. "You're not like them."

Gold gritted his teeth. "Not all of us can lead such charmed lives. Yes, I am the different and damaged one."

"I didn't mean it like that," said Susannah Clearwater.

He let out a breath. Overreacting. That seemed to be happening more and more lately. Headaches and agitation - the clock was ticking. "Sorry. Cruciatus always makes me twitchy. Alright, here's the plan."

* * *

 

He sent a message to Ginny Weasley with the charmed coins. _Longbottom's with the Carrows. I need a distraction. Near the dungeons. Loud. ASAP._

 _On it_ , came the reply, only moments later.

Every Slytherin in the castle knew which room the Carrows liked to take their victims. Snape's old potions lab lay mostly empty, all his glassware and stores shifted to the Headmaster's office. Gold got them as far as the door. Crouching to press their ears to the keyhole and the gap by the floor - it was Clearwater who had the good sense to use an amplifying charm - they heard the indistinct mutterings of the Carrows, and then a shout of pain. _Neville_.

"Leave him be!" shouted another voice, angry and accented. Gold's stomach dropped. They had Seamus, too.

Alecto replied with a cry of _"Crucio!"_ that would have been audible through the heavy oak door even without the amplifying charm.

Gold got to his feet, brandishing his wand.

"What are you _doing_?" demanded Clearwater, in a sharp whisper.

"I can't just sit here - "

"Yes you bloody well can! They're experienced duellists and they won't hesitate to use Unforgivables - you think you can just storm in?" She tugged him back down, forcefully, by his cuff. Gold let himself be dragged, irritated to discover that she was right.

It seemed to go on and on, and then the two familar, protesting voices fell silent - Neville first, then Seamus.

Gold thought he was going to scream. Then, just as he knew he couldn't wait any longer, the first explosion resounded through the stone halls. _Thank heavens for Weasleys and their wizard wheezes_.

Gold cast another _Avar lev_ and pressed himself against the stone wall, out of way of the door, using his bulk to shield Clearwater from view. Just in case.

The Carrows rushed through the door, shutting it and locking it behind them with a flick of Alecto's wand.

"How do we get through?" asked Clearwater, when they had gone. The boom and crack of the firecrackers echoed over their heads.

Gold shrugged. "What's one more explosion?" he asked, and aimed a _Diffindo_ at the stone walls that surrounded the door.

The hole it blasted was small - small enough that Gold had to wedge himself through. Clearwater, already inside, ran from Neville's unconscious body to Seamus's. "They're both breathing."

They didn't look good. Neville's eye was swollen up tight and Seamus was bleeding from a long, ugly slash down his arm. Neville opened his eyes. His gaze was unfocused. "...Gold?"

"We're rescuing you, oh brave bloody Gryff."

"You blew a hole in the wall?" Neville laughed. "Y'r mental... Now they'll just torture you too..."

"Don't care."

"You all take the fall for each other," said Clearwater, seeming to suddenly realize something. "Even when it makes no bloody sense, you're there - I don't know whether you're stupid or beautiful."

"We're both," said Neville, and closed his eyes again.

Gold cast _Cathari and Papaloi_ to clean and stitch the cut, thinking painfully of Hermione Granger. He missed her.

When he was finished, they charmed the bodies to float weightlessly and ferried them one-by-one through the hole in the wall. When they were both through Gold cast a last glance around the room for any tell-tale evidence, clearing away the rubble with a flick of his wand. Suddenly, Clearwater's pale face appeared in the hole in the wall, her blue eyes wide. "Someone's coming! I can hear-"

"-Go, take them the other way - bring them to your common room! Finch-Fletchly can get them to the Room of Requirement! Run!"

She disappeared again. Gold tried the door, but the lock would not budge. Carrow's locking spell had sealed it in both directions. _Alohamora_ did nothing - the only other unlocking spells he knew were in Hebrew, and they wouldn't work on a Latinate locking spell - Gold rushed back to the hole in the wall and tried to get through it, but the fit was tight and there was stone digging painfully into his stomach and _damn, this was too slow -_

The door swung open. " _Avar lev,_ " whispered Gold, and pulled himself out of the hole to press up against the wall, trying hard not to breathe.

" _Gelah gviyah,_ " murmured a silky voice.

The counter-charm. Gold's whole body went cold. Severus Snape was looking him in the eye. " _Expelliarmus._ "

Gold's wand flew from his grip. Snape caught it with long-fingered grace and held it up to the faint, flickering torchlight. "Interesting... Citron wood, short and solid... Not an Ollivander wand. From Israel, I take it?" Snape seemed to take Gold's silence for a yes. "And the core - a very small scroll, I believe, is the custom, tightly bound and bearing Hebrew characters."

He couldn't move. He felt locked in place, as if an electric current were clenching every muscle in his body. _How, how can he know that?_

"Do you think I'm a fool, Gold?" Snape asked, in the barest of whispers. "Your arrogance astounds me. Do you think I failed to notice when my students began using charms in Hebrew instead of Latin? Do you think I did not remember your first year?"

_Oh, G-D. Oh, Merlin. What have we done?_

"David Gold has nothing to say for himself... Well, that is a novelty." Snape flicked his wand lazily at the wall. It bricked itself up seamlessly, closing off Gold's only possible exit. Then he moved closer, with a slow and silent tread. "A rescue attempt? For Gryffindors? And friends of Potter, no less... How noble..." The silkiness of his voice was like a cold hand running down Gold's spine. The torch flames on the wall flickered with every syllable. Snape did not just know Hebraic magic - he knew _old_ magic. "I have heard tell of a number of unusual spells following a one Mr. Harry Potter... an enemy of the Ministry, as I am sure you are aware. Strange wards that cannot be broken. New hexes. Perhaps... you know something about this?"

They were figuring out the Hebrew spells. As he'd been so sure they wouldn't. Gold had equipped Potter with a cardboard shield. _Arrogance_. The word echoed along with the pound of his headache.

Gold said nothing. There was nothing to say.

"I suggest you speak, Mr. Gold... or things will get very painful for you."

A flame of defiance flickered in him. Gold said nothing. He raised his gaze to meet Snape's black, lifeless eyes.

" _Crucio!_ "

He gritted his teeth against the pain - savage pain that made him sure his head would crack open. His knees buckled. He wanted to die. There had always been part of him that wanted to just get it over with and now that part was screaming inside his head.

Snape lowered his wand, a cruel smile twisting his features.

"You'll need to do better than that, _sir_ ," Gold panted.

For a moment Snape's gaze seemed to falter, as if he were biting down on a thought. Then he smiled again. "So be it. _Legilimens!_ "

There was a sudden, bright light. Gold felt as if he were falling.

 _The light turned into the white walls of St. Mungo's, where a frail and scowling boy lay staring at the ceiling -_ _then, retching into a ceramic basin and kicking a nurse in the shin when she tried to help him - at synagogue with his brothers, his kippah covering patchy new hair - blocking a curse from Malfoy in the Slytherin dormitory - kissing Hermione in the abandoned washroom, her hand in his hair - then -_

_Suddenly the onslaught of flashing images seemed to fracture as if he was viewing them through a broken pane of glass. The pain in his head sharpened - the image fractured in two, then four, then eight, multiplying again and again along broken lines, dividing, spreading and warping - everything shattered -_

Gold opened his eyes. Both he and Snape had been thrown to the cold dungeon floor as if by the force of an explosion.

Snape was on his feet first, towering over Gold. "What. Was that." He crouched low, touching his wand to Gold's fleshy throat. He'd been visibly shaken by it - his greasy hair flew about his face and his eyes burned bright. "Some new spell? More Hebraic magic?"

Gold started to laugh. It had a hint of hysteria in it.

"Calm yourself and answer me!"

"Magic, neyn. My head is full of bad things, Headmaster. Enter at your own risk." He could feel his consciousness fuzzing out at the edges. His own voice sounded hypnotic and insane inside his head. "We think we know so much but nature makes pitiable creatures of us all in the end - she plays her probability games - you know what your numbers say, Headmaster?" Gold wasn't sure whether he had said it in English or Yiddish or simply thought it. "I know mine..."

His head rolled back, and his eyes closed.

Snape swore, loudly and foully, and kicked the prostrate body on the ground in a moment of ill-contained fury. Another one he couldn't save. First Lily's son - Draco - Gold - how many others? And no news of Potter - Gold was a dead end. His efforts to warn them about the spreading word of their secret weapon might have come too late.

Dead end. Merlin.

Snape did not think either of their numbers said anything good.

* * *

 

When Gold awoke he was in the hospital wing again, his head and his side aching, and Poppy Pomfrey had her wand trained on Alecto Carrow. He shut his eyes and feigned sleep again, ears pricked.

"You may have free reign over the rest of this school but _the day you touch my patients will be the day I die!_ "

"Leave him, Alecto," said the silky voice of Severus Snape. "The Dark Lord wants the pureblood lines untouched."

"Even the Jews?"

"Yes, even them. Let him heal before you curse him again - I promise you it is more satisfying to break someone whole."

When Alecto had gone, there was a rustle of robes above Snape's light tread. "Poppy. I need to speak with you."

"I deal with the health of our students, Headmaster. I fail to see how our interests could possibly align." Boiling oil burned cooler than the tone of her voice.

"You realize," said Snape, quite coolly, "that the boy is dying?"

That shut her up. Gold wanted to hex Snape into a thousand tiny pieces. That was not  _his_ secret to tell, damn him -

At last, Pomfrey made a tiny little sound of sorrow - a breath of air, nothing more. "Oh..."

"Your diagnostic spells missed it because it is his own tissue gone rogue. He has a brain tumour. And he knows it."

"But-" Pomfrey choked on her words. Gold had never realized she even _liked_ him, let alone feel grief over his inevitable death. "He never said anything-"

Snape held his cool. "I believe he is beginning to show symptoms. Recklessness, irritability - more so than usual, I mean - intense headaches - "

"I can't heal cancers," Poppy sniffed. "That's never been done - I don't even have the training to treat them, I'm a _pediatric_ healer - Severus, what do I _do_?" She seemed to have forgotten, or slipped back into an old habit, and Snape was no longer her enemy, but her ally.

"This is beyond your jurisdiction, Poppy. Give him something for the headaches and let him end his life as he will."

* * *

 

Gold expected a lecture when morning arrived. None came. Instead, Pomfrey gave him a pain-numbing potion that definitely wasn't the same one he normally got for bruises and broken bones, let him do what he would with the gifts of chocolate frogs sent in by the snakes and told him he could go to his common room if he promised to come back for a second dose at noon. Gold never thought he would actually want the old, domineering Pomfrey back. He went to the Room of Requirement instead.

Seamus and Neville clapped him on the back, beaming through their swellings and injuries. "You're _mental_ ," said Neville, as if it was the highest compliment.

"Have you heard anything from Potter?" Asked Gold, with an urgency. "I'm worried the Hebraic spells are getting too well-known. We have to start casting them non-verbally or not at all."

Seamus held up a radio. " _Potterwatch_ says he broke into the Ministry last night! I don't know what he was after but he got out alive!"

"He _broke into the Ministry?_ "

Seamus cackled. "Polyjuice! Looked Umbridge in the eye as it was wearing off and said _I must not tell lies_."

Gold had to laugh. With the laugh went the bulk of his worry - Potter wasn't dead yet, he was still fighting, and Gold's oversight hadn't gotten him hurt yet. "Thank Merlin for that," he murmured, as Seamus changed the radio to something lively with a hint of a ragtime beat.

Clearwater was there too, learning hexes from Ginny Weasley. "Alright, Gold? I thought you were a goner."

"Me too. Got out just in time. Are you one of us now?"

"D.A.? I think so. Is there an initiation or something?"

"You have to kiss the squid."

"Bog off."

Suddenly Neville gripped all four of them in a massive hug. "Harry'd be so proud of us right now - don't you reckon?"

"Yeah, mate," said Seamus, "but you're crushing my lungs."

"Sorry." Neville broke away. The grin would not stay off his face. "This calls for something. Butterbeer, anyone? Aberforth just sent some by through the passage - and I've got some gobstones - "

* * *

 

It was probably just that he was half-drunk off of butterbeer, but when Gold finally broke away from their celebration to use the toilets he locked himself inside and sobbed like he hadn't done since he was a first-year. He didn't want to die.


	7. The Second Seder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few weeks after the final battle, Harry goes home for Easter and attends his second Seder.

Harry hadn't spent Easter in Little Winging since he was ten years old. Most years, it found him still at Hogwarts, where the holiday was looked on as an excuse to eat Mrs. Weasley's incredible chocolate dragon eggs and little else. He'd vaguely supposed he would go to the Burrow, at first, but as time went on it became obvious that the Weasleys needed time alone as a family. To grieve. They'd always said he was welcome, that he was one of them, but somehow it did not seem right.

And part of him, strange as it seemed... almost wanted to go back. To see how much he himself had changed, and whether he could be master of his own past. He had been miserable there, and now if he could go back and be happy, it would be... not closure, but something.

He arrived on their well-groomed doorstep in Muggle dress clothes, with his Gryffindor tie on and his wand in plain view. When Aunt Petunia answered the door, Harry expected her to glare at the wand, but it was the tie her eyes strayed to.

There was a long moment of silence. At last her lips thinned, and she stepped from the doorway. "Well come inside, then. And set your shoes _neatly_ by the door. I've just polished the floors and I won't have you tracking in filth from God knows where."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia." It took a deep breath and a lot of moral fortitude to add, "It's good to see you."

Petunia said nothing. Harry followed her into the sitting room, where Uncle Vernon glanced up from the cricket match. "Oh, it's you, boy," he said, with dull surprise.

"I survived the war," said Harry. "Vanquished the Dark Lord, and all that. Thought you'd want to know."

" _I_ think it was a lot of made-up tosh," said Vernon, not very convincingly. "But you didn't get the house, see. Ahah. And now I suppose you've nowhere to go for the holiday so you've come to sponge off us."

Somehow Harry felt he'd gained the winning hand. Uncle Vernon seemed to have deflated, he noticed - he was smaller and older-looking, as if the past year had diminished him. His bluster sounded weakened.

It was only then that Harry realized how bewildering it all must have been for the Dursleys, who had been swept from their homes for a conflict they did not and could not understand. Even if they'd wanted to, it would have been as alien to them as it had once been to Harry. A tiny, vicious part of him told him they deserved it, and he told it to shut up.

Harry went upstairs, putting his trunk away in Dudley's old second bedroom - which seemed to have become a storage room, full of cardboard boxes labelled things like 'Dudley - dormitory' in Petunia's tidy hand.

"Harry?"

Dudley was peaking in through the open door frame.

"Wotcher, Big D?"

"Mum didn't tell me you were coming." He shuffled inside and kicked at a box, looking confused and embarrassed. "I'd have moved this stuff."

Harry had to hide his surprise. "It's alright, I'm not here long. They're never sending you off to uni?"

"Yeah." Another kick at the box. "Got in on a boxing scholarship thing. I don't really fancy going, but Mum wants it so much, see."

"Oh, cheer up, Dud, it's not all textbooks. There's drinking and girls, I'm told."

Dudley seemed to brighten noticeably. "So - everybody - well not normal people, obviously, your lot - they're all saying you - you... did something to You-Know-Who or something that... killed him?"

Harry perched on the edge of his old bed. "You've been talking to our lot?" He didn't quite know who this earnest, embarrassed, dim pink thing was, but it wasn't the cousin who'd tortured him through childhood.

Dudley shrugged. "Dad wouldn't have any of it and Mum just got very quiet whenever I asked. They had us staying with the Diggles. I talked to them, a bit. Loony, both of them."

Harry remembered the tiny little man who had bowed to him when he was eleven, and couldn't help smiling.

"Just, what they said was in your world you were this big hero and I mean, you never said. I'd have said."

"You wouldn't have let anybody forget it."

"Yeah." An awkward shuffle. "That was old me."

Harry's surprise reached its apex. "...You really grew up, didn't you, Dud? What happened?"

Dudley's face, always ruddy, took on a positively crimson tone. "Dunno, I mean- you just - you do grow up, don't you? And it's rotten. Looking around one day and realizing you always thought you were the hero of the story and actually you're not, it's the freaky kid you used to thrash, and everybody who used to respect you just thinks you're an idiot." Dudley's gaze rose to meet Harry's. He seemed to gain courage. "I may not be clever or anything special really but I don't have my head up my backside like Dad does."

"Wow, Dud."

"So, er. Thanks. For saving England and all that. It's probably the only thanks you'll get while you're here."

Harry shrugged. "Being a hero's not all that great really."

Dudley looked at him like he'd grown an extra head.

"It might be almost nice to be ordered around again. You know? Make a change. I'm sick of people looking at me wherever I go."

Just then - as if to make Harry's point for him - Aunt Petunia's shrill voice resounded up the stairs. " _Harry, if you're not ready in ten minutes we are leaving without you!_ "

"Church," said Dudley, apologetically. "Maundy Thursday or something. Mum and Dad've gotten into that in a big way... like it'll wash away the magic or something. They can't make you go."

"I don't mind going," said Harry, thinking of the books stacked deep in his trunk on Latin etymology, the arrival of Christianity in England and the tension between the early church and the Druidic wizards. It would, at least, be an experience.

* * *

It ended up being quite an experience. The Dursleys, overstuffed and primped in their good church outfits, piled into Vernon's new, fancy car with Harry in tow. There were some awkward moments before the service when fellow churchgoers wanted to know who this young man was, and how hadn't they known Petunia and Vernon had another, and wasn't he handsome? But Uncle Vernon silenced them with a stilted remark about St. Brutus's and the service began.

It, itself, was rather more interesting. If he'd wanted any Latin, Harry knew he would have had to go to a Catholic Mass, but there were still little things that spelled out a legacy. Harry found himself flipping through the missal in abject boredom during the readings, but the washing of the feet caught his attention. Magic had no shortage of purification rituals of its own, as he'd learned. It was particularly important to Arabic wizards, who did not do spellwork with dirty hands. Greek magic valued frequent washing for other reasons - it improved the precision of spells and the safety of potions work not to be swimming with contaminants, it seemed. Old Saxon and Druidic magic, on the other hand, thought a good crust of dirt made a wizard a little closer to the earth, a major source of their power. Though only the very eccentric chose to stick to that.

And good old C of E did it because Christ once had - not for the sake of cleanliness but to show humility and servitude in His example.

Harry was beginning to grasp what Gold had once attempted to explain to him as Old Magic - the kernels of underlying and constant truth that echoed through the lore of every magical culture. It wasn't in the specifics of the rituals, but the metaphors that knitted them together, the way gesture could echo a deeper meaning. Some things were universal. Family, courage, redemption, sacrifice, fear, betrayal, love and hate. They each had their own inherent power - magical or otherwise. Stories and languages and rituals and spells - they were all just vessels for that power.

It couldn't wash away the magic, as the Dursleys might have hoped, but if they actually took the time to think on it it might imbue them with a different kind of magic.

* * *

" _Snape_?"

Harry didn't know how Dudley had weedled Petunia into being willing to listen. It certainly hadn't worked on Uncle Vernon, who was already in bed, and now Dudley and Aunt Petunia (the only people left he still shared blood with, Harry had realized, with a strange pull at his stomach) sat by the fire with Harry, drinking weak decaffeinated tea and talking very quietly of the war. Until the name 'Snape' came up.

"You knew him, didn't you, Aunt Petunia?" asked Harry. "When you were in school?"

"Knew him? That filthy, awful scarecrow of a boy - he was always by in the summers, scheming with Lils - " Petunia put a hand to her mouth.

"Who's Snape?" asked Dudley, dimly.

"Teacher of mine. He used to know my mum when they were kids."

Aunt Petunia stared at him with ill-contained curiousity. "He became a _teacher_? At your - freaky school?" Then she sniffed. "I suppose he favoured you, too."

Harry wanted to say, _Like you've never favoured anybody_ , but he held his tongue. It was too early in the visit to start a fight. "No, actually, he hated me. Hated my father, see."

"Well, he _was_ always in love with my sister," Petunia spat.

"Yes," said Harry, " _Always_ always, as it turned out."

Petunia didn't seem to notice the gravitas of what Harry had said. She'd been pushed into her own world. "Him and everyone else - our parents - precious, pretty Lily, so clever and talented - Well I loved her first, before she was anything special at all! And _Snape_ \- flapped in with his hand-me-down rags and stole her away to some freaky castle to learn _magic_." Petunia sniffed again. This time it was as tearful as it was disdainful. Harry heard the echoed words that she didn't speak. _To Hogwarts, where I couldn't follow._

Dudley put a hand on her arm. Aunt Petunia melted. "Oh, thank you, Duddykins - so thoughtful - Mummy's alright now." She let out a long breath. "So Snape got himself killed by a snake."

"While undercover. He was the best spy of them all. He fooled me totally. And I never even knew he and my Mum were friends."

"He was always too sneaky by half."

Her lack of respect felt like an insult to a part of him, but Harry couldn't wholly say he disagreed. His feelings towards Snape hadn't resolved themselves into anything cohesive, besides admiration. A brave man? Yes. A good man? That was harder to say. Certainly not a nice man. "I... never liked him, but he's a hero now. He has a statue on the castle grounds and a potions college named for him and Rita Skeeter's writing him a biography that's going to turn him into some romantic misunderstood Byronic hero, just you wait and see."

"Mum?" Dudley had crossed to the window. "There's an owl outside."

Aunt Petunia spent a moment in anxious deliberation, chewing her thin lips. "Let in it," she said at last. "But be very quiet. Don't let your father hear."

An elegant horned owl with very long, dark grey plumage swept in through the door, perching on the edge of Harry's chair. It dropped a crimson envelope into Harry's lap. For one anxious moment he thought he had received a Howler, but the envelope was a deeper red, Harry's name and address at the Dursley's lettered on it in golden ink.

Dudley went off to find the bird something to eat - a task he seemed to quite enjoy, for the owl let him stroke it afterwards, staring at him with quiet dignity - and Harry opened the letter. A small invitation card fell out. Harry read it.

"Oh," he said, in pleasant surprise, "I've been invited to the Golds' Seder again."

Then it occurred to him that they'd buried David Gold mere weeks ago. A weight sunk into his stomach.

"What's a Seder?" asked Dudley.

"Passover meal - it's good fun, normally, but I don't fancy this one will be. Their son died in the war. He was one of the ones that fought with us." Harry found a fresh envelope and a bit of paper and started to scrawl out a reply. "I should go... They always loved him best. Is that alright, Aunt Petunia?"

"Fine with me," said Petunia, "one less mouth to feed tomorrow."

* * *

"Did a lot of people die?" asked Dudley, quietly. They were back in Harry's room, now, drinking domestic beer that Dudley had snuck from Uncle Vernon's stock.

"Seventy-eight," said Harry, "on our side, at least. Some of the Death Eaters' mercenaries didn't get counted, and if you include all the monsters they brought in I don't reckon anyone knows. More than two hundred."

"People... our age? That you knew?"

Harry thought for a moment, then went to his trunk and got out his photo album. He'd thought to just show Dudley the dead - it felt fitting, somehow, he hadn't looked at their pictures since the battle and even if it was painful, it felt right to think about them - but Dudley was interested in every picture. He couldn't seem to believe that they moved even though it wasn't a television screen.

"That's the D.A. - our fighting club."

"Cor, like boxing?"

"With wands. There's spells that do a lot of damage. We were more about self-defence than anything else, but we got pretty good, I think." He pointed out Neville, whose grin seemed to illuminate the whole picture (" _He_ killed that dirty great snake thing? That killed what's-his-name? I'd have sat on him, back in third form."), Seamus, whose hair was aflame, Ron, whose hair may as well have been aflame, and Hermione.

"I've seen the ginger-nut before. The girl's pretty fit."

Harry hid a grin. "Brainy, too. She's sort of a thing with ginger-nut."

"Shame. Why've that lot all got green ties?"

Harry's smile tightened slightly. The snakes waved at him from their corner of the photograph, looking not like abused and angry Slytherins, for once, but like kids, happy to be with their friends. Pettyfer's tiny pixie face bore a huge grin. It was strange to look at them all and pick out the dead amongst the living. Gold was off to the side, with an odd look on his face, like he wanted to smile but his pride wouldn't bear it.

"Those are the snakes," said Harry, "they were sort of a club of their own before they joined us. And that's the one who died, whose family sent me the letter." Maybe it was the beer, but something made him honest. "He reminded me of you at first, Dud. Wasn't really fair to either of you."

Gold had been less of a bully, spoiled for different reasons. And, apparently, less capable of change than Dudley, whose once greedy little eyes were now wide with a confused effort at humility. Harry was surprised to find himself angry at Gold. Survivors' accounts of the battle made his efforts sound quasi-suicidal. Typical of him, in his haze of righteous self-destruction, not to take notice of the family Harry felt sure his death had destroyed.

"You didn't like him, then," Dudley surmised, in a moment of surprising self-awareness.

Harry shrugged. "Not much. Smug git, really, but useful to have around and according to Hermione he could be a good sort if you tricked him into letting himself."

"At least I wouldn't be hard to trick," said Dudley, gloomily.

"You're not like you were, Dud. Don't beat yourself up."

"So you're going to this - Seeder thing?"

Harry nodded. "Seems like the right thing."

* * *

Harry had expected to find them all in black. He didn't know why, really. Shiva would be long over. But even so. He did not expect Gold's mother to answer the door wearing a deep peacock blue. She hugged him. " _Baruch haba_ , Harry."

" _Toda raba_ , Rifke."

Yes, there were strains of grief on the house - the brothers more subdued, any last pictures of Gold still covered in black cloth - but something seemed to console them all, as if they knew some good news that he didn't. When he finally got Ben aside, he wasn't sure how to broach the topic. "Ben - how's everything? Er - your studies?"

Ben beamed, his dark eyes crinkling. "Better. So much better than before. The war slowed things down so much - even over in the States, things were bad. I'm at Salem Institute now, for my doctorate, and there's always been weird wizard-Muggle tension there, no prizes for guessing why. So with You-Know-Who killing Muggles back home everything was just kind of bad for a while. People in my department thought if they used a Muggle method, You-Know-Who'd track them down. Stupid."

"People are stupid when they're scared."

"Yeah. But then _you_ won it - and suddenly everyone's all excited about Muggle drug therapies. Potions are so blunt - what do we really have that you don't whack on your skin or swallow? - so I'm working on this small-scale locomotor spell that targets drug molecules to specific cells, much easier than nanoparticles. It goes in through ion channels - and - boom, apoptosis!" His excitement quelled momentarily. "It could help a lot of people. Wizard and Muggle. No more chemotherapy potions killing their stomach lining and their hair follicles, it just goes right to the tumour tissue!"

Harry had understood about half of what Ben said, and it was enough to make him happy. "That's great, Ben."

Ben looked bashful. "David's idea originally. But I got it off the ground."

"Ah - Ben?" Harry glanced around, lowering his voice. "Can you tell me- I thought your parents would be... worse, somehow. How is everybody, er, coping?"

"Oh, well, it was pretty bad, but then-" Suddenly Ben clamped a hand to his mouth, turning red. A giggle escaped past the hand. "Oh, bollocks, I'm not supposed to tell you - it's a secret - Oh, I've probably ruined it now. Sorry, Harry, I can't say!"

Harry didn't have a clue what was going on until the sun went down, and they all went into the dining room to start the meal. One minute all was normal - and the next, the silvery, transparent form of a fat boy with elegantly coiffed hair and a bored, smirking expression had appeared at the empty place set to his father's right.

"David! That spot's for Elijah!"

Gold's ghost rolled its eyes. "It's not like I'm going to eat it, Mum." He turned to Harry. "Hello, Potter. Boo, and all that."


	8. Dirty Great Snakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the last month of his second year, Gold finds he's better with followers than he is with friends, loses a book, gets it back, and forms the nucleus of the snakes.

* * *

Didon Pettyfer's mother was French, a blue-eyed Beauxbatons beauty queen whose blood status was good enough to excuse her family the crime of being financially middle-class. Her formal education was in potions at _L'institut Vulgate_ in Paris, but she was no notable scholar. Not in that subject, anyway. Her true education was in etiquette, and it was this that forged her a place in the world. She was elegant and eloquent in French, English and German, could sing charmingly and cook fine meals, knew how to dress and when to laugh or make conversation or bat her eyes demurely. Above all she knew how to hold her tongue.

Didon's father was a Slytherin of older money and better blood than her mother, which acquitted him of the crime of being twenty years her senior. He travelled often, moving high-demand and dangerous potions materials around the globe, or at least that was what it said on his business card. They didn't talk about what he really did. All the children learned that lesson from their mother and never thought to question it.

She was the youngest of them. Her elder brothers called her _petite-sous-pieds_ , and petite and underfoot she was. Her height never reached past four-foot-nine. Given a low gust, she would blow away. She was eager for attention and approval, full of questions that nobody could answer. Her mother would shush her harshly before the first word. " _Chuchotte, ma belle_! You are much prettier to look at that you are to hear!"

It was said with love, and Didon understood that looking pretty was a witch's art and aspiration. It came to her easily; she had a pleasant face and a light tread. Like her mother she would never have to work to maintain her slim figure. She watched her mother closely, and learned what she could get with a smile and a flicker of her lashes. In her first year at Hogwarts she was careful to be sorted into Slytherin (" _Merlin's beard,"_ the sorting hat murmered into her ear, " _are you trying to think of your tricksiest moments, just to sway me towards Slytherin? What a very Slytherin thing to do, you lucky little devil._ "). When she initially excelled at transfiguration and charms, working hard like her brothers did in an effort to outdo them, she was chastised instead of praised. "Your posture!" her mother would cluck. "Too much time in the library! Have you no friends to pass your time with?"

It wasn't fair. Her brothers got to read all they liked, and be powerful, and all she had was the power of a pretty smile. Didon wanted more. She wanted to _be_ more. But if she was not pretty and demure and proper, she was nothing at all.

* * *

"Excuse me, monsieur."

The second-year boy sitting in her place in the common room - _her special place, close to the fire, with the lovely, polished oak armrests carved in the shape of elegant foliage scrolls, the one that reminded her of home -_ had a small thin face and a twitchy manner. He stared up at her for a moment. Didon knew by rumour that he was a Muggleborn, and he looked far too nervous to take any foolish risks. But instead of quietly getting up and leaving with his tail between his legs, as Didon had expected, he glanced over at the boy sitting next to him.

"You're excused," said the other boy, without looking up from his book.

Others in her house would have sneered at him. Didon was too well-bred to sneer externally, but in the privacy of her head she sneered to the moon and back. The second of the boys was well-groomed but fat and consequentially homely, wearing Muggle clothes, lounging bonelessly in his seat, reading and eating an apple. Like he owned the place. He wasn't from any pureblood family _she_ had amongst her acquaintance. Muggle clothes might have been acceptable in other parts of the castle, but they weren't decent here in the Slytherin common room. His whole existence seemed somehow indecent. She imagined his chair breaking under him.

She smiled prettily at the fat boy. "I was speaking to your friend." As if on cue, the Muggleborn squirmed and started to get up.

"I'm not so much Tasker's friend as his legal team," said the fat boy. "Sit down, Tasker."

Didon huffed and turned to the smaller boy. "I'm terribly sorry, but that is my usual place - I'm sure you didn't mean to intrude, but if you could-"

"Do you know what the phrase 'common room' actually means?" the fat boy interrupted, looking up from his book to meet her gaze directly.

Didon was taken aback. "...Well, it's a room for the common usage of the house."

He bit into the apple with a loud crunch. "Correct, and yet somehow still completely empty of meaning" he said, around the apple. "The word 'common'."

Something about her tone seemed to imply she was an idiot. Didon was no idiot. "Public. Universal."

"Antonym?"

"Private or unique."

Tasker was watching them like it was the Muggle game with the rackets and the back-and-forth green ball.

"Thus the contents of the common room are not to be made private, but to serve in the common wellbeing."

She scowled. Her friends were nearby, tittering, and she wasn't sure if it were directed at her or him. "That's all very well and good, but tradition dictates I sit there."

The boy leaned forward. Throughout the whole conversation his expression had not changed. Neither had the directness of his eye contact. His eyes were very dark brown, almost black. They reflected firelight. "And that's your trump card? 'Because it was, so it shall continue to be'?"

"Traditions hold the world together."

"A pot may hold clay for a young tree, but eventually the tree's roots will shatter it. Whatever you're afraid of, the chair will not make it better."

He was making her unsure of herself. She hated it. It was like standing in her brothers' shadows yet again, letting them call her _petite-sous-pieds_ in front of all her friends.

"You're taking liberties above your station, Gold," warned Carolingia Rowle, taking a place at Didon's side. Didon knew from her smirk that this 'Gold' was an outsider, somehow. Didon knew she'd won. Not even the purest purebloods defied Carolingia Rowle.

"Well, I'll have to cut that out, or I might have an original thought. What's my station, Carolingia?"

"You're nothing but an upstart foreign nobody but I didn't think even _you_ were fool enough to defend a Mudblood."

"Obviously you don't know me very well."

Carolingia's eyes glittered. "Haven't you heard the news? _Enemies of the Heir beware._ Muggleborn filth and Mudblood-lovers alike."

Tasker made a small involuntary sound. Gold simply locked eyes with Carolingia and bit into the apple again, with a defiant _crunch_.

"Disgusting." Carolingia turned on her heel and flounced away - which seemed to delight the fat boy immeasurably. A smirk spread across his face, and he returned to his book. "Don't let her bait you, Tasker, she knows no more about it than any of us."

"That's easy for you to say," objected Tasker. Didon was surprised to find he had a voice, and not a little, wheedly one either. "The Heir wouldn't go after you."

"It'll have to, if it wants to get to you," answered Gold. They both seemed to have quite forgotten she was there - or were ignoring her on purpose.

Didon didn't like being ignored. She cleared her throat. "I'm not afraid of change. I just like that seat."

"And you like simpering to Rowle, too, I'm sure."

"I don't _simper_. Carolingia's my friend. And _you_ are very rude."

"Better that than a liar. Come on, you've a brain, why don't you use it? Do you _like_ agreeing with everything she says and trying to catch the eye of any rich pureblood that'll have you, even though you could out-think him in a heartbeat?"

She glared at him, stuck for words. He was the most impetuous person she had ever met.

He grinned, and got to his feet. "Here, then. I can see I'm not going to change your mind. I hope your traditions keep you safe from all the bad new ideas and complicated thoughts. Come on, Tasker, let's go jelly-legs Hector Claude."

She knew he was mocking her, but she didn't know how to respond. She glared at them as they left. It was only when he was through the portrait hole and gone that she noticed he'd left his book. _Treatise of Human Nature_ , _by David Hume_ sat on the surface of the sought-after chair like a giant accusatory eye.

Didon sat down and flipped it open.

* * *

"Staying out of trouble?"

Avi, only a fifth-year, was already the best potion-maker in Hufflepuff house. Which wouldn't normally mean much, but Avi really was skilled. David watched with a needle of envy as his brother's slim, sure hands measured out bloodroot and cut it into precise, perfect lengths. He said nothing in reply. He hated lying to Avi.

"Alright, you don't have to answer," said Avi, easily. "How about friends? Lots of those?"

David thought about it. Tasker hung around a lot, but they had never stopped calling each other by their surnames. David doubted very much Tasker would have bothered if he didn't know that David could protect him from the upper-year Slyths. "Slytherins don't have friends, Avi, we have followers and allies."

Avi smiled down at the rat tails he was carefully skinning. Occupied with the work in his hands, he didn't seem to notice that David wasn't kidding. "Alright, those then. Lots?"

"Enough."

"I knew you'd be fine."

Part of him glowed in the warmth of his brother's rare faith in him. Part of him wanted to slap the skinning knife out of his hands and force him to look David in the eye, Maybe then perfect, lovely, thrice-charmed Avriel would be able to see that he _wasn't_ fine, that nothing was fine, Slytherin was a den of cutthroat liars and David was profoundly alone.

His brother's dark, laughing eyes remained fixed on the rat tails.

"I want you to stay out of the corridors when you're alone," said Avi, after a moment. "They're saying it's Muggleborns, but Salazar Slytherin would have fancied we were just as bad. If you got petrified, _khas v'kholileh_ , there might be complications - "

"Thank you, mother."

"Well I'm sorry, David, but it's my job to look after you."

"Because you allllways know better than me how to do that."

"David…"

"Isn't it already Samson's job?"

"Samson's busy with his N.E.W.T.S."

Of course he was. Samson had his N.E.W.T.S. and Avi had his O.W.L.s and they were both off to have bright, beautiful futures in magical healing. Time enough to care so much about his wellbeing that they wrapped their whole careers around his fate but not enough to look him in the fucking eye.

David scowled at the floor. He knew he was being stupid. It wasn't Avi's fault. "I won't go roaming the halls on my own." _Much._ _You see what happens when you play mother, Avi? I have to lie to you. You're working yourself to the bone to heal the whole world and especially me and I'm lying through my teeth.  
_

"Thanks, David," said Avi, distractedly, "You're doing really great."

David left without saying goodbye. If his brothers loved him too much to respect him, he'd go to those who respected him but did not love him.

* * *

Thomas Tasker felt like he had a target painted on his back. According to the admissions ledger that sat in the library, he was one of only ten in Slytherin house whose status was anything less than quarter-blood and one of only seven true Muggleborns. The numbers did not fill him with confidence.

When he could, he followed Gold around like a second shadow. It probably made no sense, hiding from the Heir behind a second-year, but Gold was close to top of their year and he seemed to have total faith in his own abilities. Thomas thought he was mental, but couldn't help believing it himself, after a while. Gold could do things with magic that nobody else knew how to do. He could do things with just _words_ and _looks_ that nobody else knew how to do.

Thomas knew a leader when he saw one.

They were in the library, hidden near the back amongst all the old books of pureblood history and genealogy. Searching for the word 'heir', for references to the Chamber of Secrets, anything.

"There's something here about a hidden room full of privies that only opens when you _really_ need to go," said Thomas.

"Probably not our boy. The Heir writes on the wall with blood. He's dramatic. I doubt he'd stoop to privies. Beneath his dignity, see?" They kept looking.

"If it's really attacking Muggleborns, we should talk to the other ones in Slytherin," said Tasker, after a moment. _Safety in numbers._

Gold looked up at him sharply. "There's other Muggleborns in Slytherin?"

"Seven of us."

Gold was already shoving books into his bag. "Let's go."

"What, now?"

"Yes, now. They're vulnerable."

Tasker was surprised by the urgency in Gold's tone. Maybe Gold was more afraid of the Chamber of Secrets than he'd let on. But he couldn't hardly be afraid for himself. Pure blood meant something, even in an outsider. He got up and started putting his things away.

* * *

Getting to each Muggleborn turned out to be difficult. One of them was a sixth-year who thought the whole thing was a load of rot and certainly wasn't going to listen to a pair of second-years, thank-you-very much. A second thought that safety in numbers would just make them all more vulnerable. A third just looked at them like they were mad.

Then the news came that Hermione Granger - top in their year - had been petrified too. And suddenly they were all listening, desperate for anyone who even _seemed_ to have a plan.

That evening they gathered by the fire and Gold laid out a schedule that would allow them to get each Muggleborn to their classes without having to rely on the Slytherin prefects - who, Gold seemed furious to learn, liked to threaten the Muggleborns with petrification if they didn't earn enough house points. Tasker knew those were empty threats, but they still scared him. Everything seemed scary, right now.

When the rest of them had gone to bed and the common room was all but empty, Tasker and Gold sat up by the fire, combing their library books for the Chamber of Secrets.

Hearing footsteps, Tasker looked up, and saw Didon Pettyfer approaching them. For a moment he wanted to groan, but the look on her face was not the same polite cattiness from the day before. She was in a hurry and she looked scared.

"What do _you_ want?" asked Gold, who hadn't looked up long enough to notice how pale she was.

"It's a snake."

"What?"

"I heard Malfoy talking. He said something about a dirty great snake."

Gold closed his book and stared at her. "Talk sense, Pettyfer."

"I _am!_ " She glanced around anxiously, leaned in, lowered her voice. "The thing that's attacking Muggleborns. It's got something to do with a snake." Thomas noticed that her hands were shaking. "I think... it's a basilisk."

"A _basilisk_ in Hogwarts?"

"Well, think about it! Slytherin's symbol was a snake - and nobody's looked it directly in the eye, Creevey had a camera - Fitch-Fletchly saw it through a ghost and they say Granger had a mirror-"

Thomas didn't know what any of that had to do with basilisks, or even what a basilisk was. But Gold seemed to, and he was quiet for a long, long moment, staring into the fire, his face set in a frown. "Should I trust you?" he asked, at last. To Thomas's surprise it seemed like a serious question.

"I'm not lying," said Pettyfer. And she handed him a book. Thomas recognized it as the book Gold had been reading the other night, by the fire. "What's happening - I don't like it. I didn't join Slytherin house to see a lot of innocent kids die."

"You're not concerned someone'll see you helping the Muggleborns and Mudblood-lovers?" asked Gold. "Enemies of the Heir, beware. I think we qualify."

Thomas wanted to tell him to shut up - having another pureblood on their side would improve their chances - but Pettyfer didn't seem at all deterred. If anything, she stood straighter and looked fiercer, despite her shaking hands. "You're the only ones trying to actually do anything. That'll have to be good enough."

"Thought you preferred tradition? Heaven knows Slytherin's been trying to drive out the Muggleborns for decades. Your friend Carolingia wouldn't approve."

"I'm telling you I was wrong, you don't have to rub it in my face. Have I passed your little test? Used my head? Showed that I'm not scared to change things? Carolingia Rowle is one thing but a _basilisk_ is - it's going too far. This isn't what I thought being pureblooded meant."

Gold gave her a steady look. "Sit down, Pettyfer."

Pettyfer sat. Her chair was empty, but she deliberately chose another.

Gold stared back into the fire. "A dirty great snake, azoy?" Orange light played off his eyes. "Well, I'm a dirty great snake too, and if it touches a one of you it'll learn I've got fangs."


	9. The Continued Haunting of Draco Malfoy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set some time after the final battle. Gold discovers that there are people on earth who find Malfoy attractive. And some of them aren't even horrible people.

Granger had long since stopped being able to visit him at Hogwarts. She'd moved beyond it; it wasn't part of her life any more. Gold knew that. He didn't wait for her like a new puppy any more. _That_ rather pitiful phase had, he decided, been the byproduct of a transient depression brought on by the sudden and jarring realization that a) after so long spent with the knowledge that his time on earth was finite, suddenly he literally had all the time in the world, and b) he was _dead_.

He'd moved on, or at least learned to keep himself busy. He had a whole house full of students to concern himself with. He'd been the self-appointed Golem of Slytherin house since he was a chubby, pouty eleven-year-old and that title didn't just wash away with a silly thing like death.

But something kept pulling him back here. Sometimes bodily. Being incorporeal had its blessings - very few spells seemed to have the slightest effect on him now, and he could pass through walls at will - but now that he was no longer subject to physical forces, _other_ forces seemed to move him as they would.

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

"It's not like I was in _love_ with her," he groused, waking up yet again in the tiled cool of the abandoned toilets with no idea how he'd gotten there. "She shouldn't mean this much, I shouldn't keep getting tugged here."

"Maybe it's me you're really here to see? I'm better company than the Baron."

"Oh, shut up, Myrtle."

Somewhere behind him - Gold wasn't looking at her - he heard a splash and a wail. "You're so _cruel_! We're the only ghosts in this whole wretched castle who died as students - I thought I was finally getting- I don't know, _something_!" She gave a deep, waterlogged sniff. "You don't have to love me, just _talk_ to me!"

"We live and die lonely, Myrtle," said Gold, who'd barely listened to a word she said, "Get used to it."

* * *

It had been a long time since he'd been back to Malfoy Manor. It looked.. different. Much of the well-kept grounds, run to seed during the war, had been allowed to grow somewhat wild. What had once been a massive, immaculate lawn was now a meadow, overrun with wildflowers. The peacocks were gone. The hedgerows assumed more natural forms than the perfect, boxy regularity that Gold had become familiar with during his many hauntings. The great oak trees that shaded the house were alive with birds and dripping with grapevine and mistletoe.

"I love what you've done with the place," said Gold, appearing stretched out on Malfoy's desk with one knee crooked, draw-me-like-one-of-your-French-girls style. 

Malfoy shrieked. Then abruptly regained his composure and glared. "Not funny, Gold. Where _have_ you been?"

He twisted round to sit cross-legged on the desktop. "Have I been remiss in my haunting duty?"

"It's been four months."

"Has it?" Gold frowned. "Time sort of gets away from me now. It never used to."

"You could have at least gotten in touch."

"Draco..." Gold tilted his head, staring. "Have you _missed_ me?"

"No," said Malfoy, "I need you as a character witness."

It was possibly the only answer that could have shocked Gold more than a straight 'yes'. Malfoy, seeing the obvious bewilderment on his face, sighed and leaned in, speaking to him in a whisper. "The thing is, I've done what I can to make reputable connections and move forward, and so on, but sometimes one doesn't want any doubt in the matter and next to the sodding golden trio you're the only moral authority I know who's not, you know, the non-communicative form of dead."

"I'm flattered."

"Take me seriously for once in your bloody life."

"It's not my life any more, Malfoy, and I _am_ taking you seriously," said Gold, holding up his hands, "I'm flattered. I mean it."

"Good. Er. Well." Malfoy had gone rather pink. "I'll go and - "

"-Draco, love, who are you talking to?"

Gold had been expecting Draco's mother, but the woman who walked in was far younger and, Gold thought, far more pleasant-looking. She was thin and dark-haired, dressed in brown robes that made her look more sensible than sensual, held in place with a large silver pin in the shape of a dragonfly. There was a cleverness in her eyes.

Gold's eyebrows shot up. "Oh." Then he saw the glittering ring on her left hand, and the eyebrows in question made a break for his hairline. "Someone's _marrying_ you?"

Malfoy went crimson. _Shut it,_ he mouthed.

The woman laughed. "Yes, gods call me crazy, I am." Her tone was lightly teasing, affectionate even. She actually seemed to like him.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Malfoy, to his credit, recovered his poise quite quickly. "Astoria - you remember I told you the place was haunted?"

"I'm sorry for not believing you, love, but he did sound rather far-fetched." She turned to Gold. "So you're an old school friend of his?"

"David Gold, as I was known in life. Ghosts need titles, apparently, so I'm the Golem of Slytherin, as often as not. _Were_ we friends, Draco?"

"...More like school enemies," admitted Malfoy. Then he tilted his head so that Astoria wouldn't see, and mouthed _Please make me look like I wasn't such a berk_.

Gold smiled like a cat with a can-opener. He was going to blackmail Malfoy something _fierce_ later on. "But, you know, we saw past our differences after my death," he lied.

"So why do you still haunt him?"

"It's not really a proper haunting. We catch up on Slyth gossip and swap opinions on Muggle philosophers." Merlin, that part wasn't even a lie.

"Yes, he likes that, doesn't he," said Astoria, absently.

Gold had to fight the urge to snigger. The size of Malfoy's collection of Muggle philosophical literature was second only to the Song of Songs on the 'list of things Malfoy and Gold would never speak of again'. "I think it speaks volumes about his improved open-mindedness, really," he said, trying to sound pleasant. _Oh, Malfoy, you owe me._

"I'll leave you two to chat for a moment," said Draco, who looked like he knew exactly what was going through Gold's head and was fighting the misguided urge to strangle him. "I think I might open a bottle of something. Astoria, darling, would you prefer the '69 cab to the ruffino? "

"You know I prefer beer, love," she answered, in a sing-song voice. Gold liked her more and more.

"Pour me a glass of the ruffino," he called out at Malfoy's retreating back, entirely to be difficult. "Just leave it out for me as a ceremonial gesture, like I'm Elijah."

"You tease him something terrible," said Astoria.

Malfoy had pleaded with him to paint him in a good light, but Gold decided authenticity would make for a prettier picture. "Oh, you've seen nothing. This is us playing nice."

"He's a sensitive soul, you know. The war was hard on him. He was so afraid, all the time." She perched on a table, using one of the chairs as a footrest and revealing large, rather splendid boots. They looked like they could have kicked through walls. Gold was fairly sure they were dragonhide.

"I know," answered Gold, allowing himself to sober, "or at least I suspected, at the time. I held him in contempt for it. But he's got a will to change, and that means something."

"Do you think he's changed enough?" For the first time, there was worry beneath her fondness. "Don't mistake me - I love him. He tries so hard. He worships me. He makes me _laugh_. I just... don't want to see him relapse."

Gold thought about it. "I warn you, I'm not one for sugar-coating. Except for literal sugar coating, which is delicious."

"Go ahead."

"Never stop loving him, Astoria, or he will implode. He's always been so desperate for real affection and if you ever take it away I fear he'll be worse than he was."

Astoria let out a long, slow breath. "...No pressure."

"A lot of pressure. If you can't handle it, now's the time to get out."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "How old were you when you died?"

"Seventeen."

"So this is an angsty adolescent's take on long-term commitment."

Gold shrugged. "I was always bollocks at love. But very good at reading people."

"...I think I can be what he needs. I hope I can."

"If it helps, you're already more than he deserves," said Gold, trying to resurrect a hint of levity. "Who are you, anyway? I know you drink beer instead of massively expensive wine and have boots that could crush bone, which is enough to sway my judgement, but still."

"Greengrass. Astoria Greengrass."

Gold frowned. "Your sister was in my year in Slytherin."

"That sister terrorized me all through my childhood," said Astoria, looking him dead in the eye.

"Really? Oh, thank Merlin, I was going to say she was a complete _khaleria_ but I didn't want to offend you."

Astoria let out the faintest breath of a laugh. "I think maybe I shouldn't ask what that means. But. Daphne was mother's favourite. The only one who preferred me was my grandmother. She and I were both... well. There is a reason I chose not to go to Hogwarts."

Gold stared at her. Somehow the idea of _not_ going to Hogwarts was unfeasible to him. "Where did you go?"

"Avebury Henge."

Something dawned on him. "...You're a Druid?"

"Like my father's mother, yes. I was always more drawn to moon and stars than stone walls. Hogwarts stifled my magic."

"Is that why there's mistletoe growing outside?"

She beamed. "Yes. Draco let me leave out the berries, even though sometimes it can kill an oak - do you know what the birds do? They eat the berries, and the seeds get stuck on their bills, and then when they alight in a tree they choose a new branch, not too new, because it's just the size for their feet, and wipe the seed off with their bills. And so it grows in the tree. When it grows thick enough I can perform a moon-hailing."

Gold gave her a confused look. Astoria looked quite happy to explain. "It's a purification ritual. Sort of a spell, sort of not. But I think it might help Draco... you know... forget. About the parts of the war he's not proud of."

"Ah, now _that_ I understand.'

"Few do." There was a hint of a challenge in her voice. "Latin wizards don't _have_ purification rituals any more. Not since they drained all the faith out of magic. Druids are old, old as the hills. These lands used to be ours, until the Roman Empire came in. A different kind of Pagan magic took over then. There's so few of us left now." And as she spoke, she reached out towards a small potted vine that Gold was _sure_ hadn't been there the last time he was here. It bent towards her like a snake, twining around her finger.

Gold laughed. He'd never been able to resist a whiff of a challenge. "Don't get competitive with me about old and oppressed magical cultures, miss Greengrass. Zeyda used to say a good Jew would keep an argument going his whole life rather than lose it. But if there's one thing Harry Potter successfully rammed down my throat it's that everyone has their old magic. It comes with the territory of believing there are levels of meaning in the world beyond what you can touch."

"I think it blurs into faith," said Astoria. "Latin wizards see a dichotomy, but I can't. You yourself are proof of the undying nature of the soul."

"You're too kind."

At that point Malfoy appeared, juggling a glass of amber beer, a bottle of wine and two glasses.

"Merlin, Malfoy, you didn't think I was serious about the cup for Elijah, did you?"

Malfoy gave him a blank look.

"Draco," said Astoria, rising to her feet to peck him on the cheek, "Should we take these outside and show him my standing stones?"

* * *

When he left the Malfoys he didn't go back to the castle. Instead, he found the Burrow, and from there, the little cottage down the road where Granger and Weasley had settled. Draco and Astoria's happiness seemed to have cut a hole in him and it needed to be stitched up somehow.

Hermione had always been good at that part.

He didn't approach the house itself. That felt invasive, somehow. Instead he stood by the gate in the dimming twilight, watching the blooms of the dogwood tree in the front garden move with the evening wind and wishing he could feel that wind. Hoping, somehow, that she would catch sight of him in the window and come out to speak with him.

Eventually, he went back home, and awoke again in the abandoned toilets.

* * *

"Scorpius! _Scorpius!_ Give it back, it's not funny!"

"I bet you write all your secrets in here, all the margins are full of ink-"

Rose stomped her foot. Scorpius knew a lot of things she liked hearing, about the moon, and goddesses who watched over flocks, and men in white robes who carried golden scythes. Spooky stuff, but interesting, too, and not stuff she could find in _any_ book in the Hogwarts library, and she'd looked at all of the ones that weren't in the restricted section, thank-you-very-much. But he acted like he could just take whatever he wanted, especially when they went to the Slytherin common room. He was much better-behaved when he came to see her in Gryffindor because James and Teddy and all them were there to make sure he didn't get beyond himself.

Al Potter, who had been sitting by the fire reading his book, peeked his head around the wing of a big armchair. "Careful, Scor," he said, with badly-contained laugh. "A pureblood picking on somebody mixed-blood? The Golem'll get you for sure."

"Yeah, right, Potter."

"Or maybe I will. Give her back her book."

Scorpius rolled his eyes and handed Rose back her copy of _Hogwarts: a History_.

"What's the Golem?" asked Rose, perfectly content now that she had her book back. He'd only been teasing, but she _did_ have secrets written in it.

"Don't ask, or we'll be here for hours," said Scorpius, rolling his eyes again. He was the king of eye-rolling. Rose had never met anyone so good at it. "Father says he's a friend, but all they do is argue anyway."

"Not strictly true," said a voice from behind her. She whirled around. Behind her, a silvery, transparent ghost lounged in one of the armchairs - a fat teenager with very fancy hair. "Sometimes we also play chess," said the ghost.

"While arguing."

"Hello, Scorpius."

"Hello Gold."

The ghost turned its eyes on her, tilting its head. A flicker of something passed over its face. "Who's this?

Rose swallowed, and went for the phrase she had always rehearsed for meeting new people who frightened her. He wasn't as scary-looking as the word 'golem' made him sound, but ghosts were still a little scary either way. "Rose Weasley, sir. It's a very great pleasure to meet you, sir." She started to stick out her hand, then faltered and pressed it back to her side.

"I thought so." The ghost was silent for a moment. "I knew your mother when we were students here. She's likely forgotten who I am, but I was very fond of her."

"Were you in love with her, sir?" asked Rose, who was too romantic a soul to show much subtlety.

Scorpius looked at her like she'd just said a very foul word. But the ghost just shook his head.

"I don't think so. _In love_ is a big, important thing and I don't like to use it lightly." His tone was... not quite wistful, but thoughtful. "She was the best friend I ever had. Which may be even more important."

Rose had a thought. "What did you say your name was?"

"I'm the Golem of Slytherin."

"Not that name. That's just a title. The name you were born with."

The ghost looked at her oddly. "David Gold."

Rose laughed, delighted. "Oh, she remembers you."


End file.
